Turkey to take over fight against IS after US pulls out

Turkey will take over the fight against Islamic State militants in Syria as the United States withdraws its troops, President Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday, in the latest upheaval wrought by Washington's abrupt policy shift.

The surprise announcement by U.S. President Donald Trump this week that he would withdraw roughly 2,000 troops has felled a pillar of American policy in the Middle East. Critics say Trump's decision will make it harder to find a diplomatic solution to Syria's seven-year-old conflict

For Turkey, the step removes a source of friction with the United States. Erdogan has long castigated his Nato ally over its support for Syrian Kurdish YPG fighters against ISIS. Turkey considers the YPG a terrorist group and an offshoot of the armed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), fighting for Kurdish autonomy across the border on Turkish soil.

In a speech in Istanbul, Erdogan said Turkey would mobilize to fight remaining ISIS forces in Syria and temporarily delay plans to attack Kurdish fighters in the north-east of Syria - shifts both precipitated by the American decision to withdraw.

The news was less welcome for other US allies. Both France and Germany warned that the US change, of course, risked damaging the campaign against ISIS, the extremists who seized big swathes of Iraq and Syria in 2014-15 but have now been beaten back to a sliver of Syrian territory.

Likewise, the US-backed militia spearheaded by the YPG said a Turkish attack would force it to divert fighters from the battle against ISIS to protect its territory.

ISIS launched an attack on Friday in Syria's south-east against the US-backed SDF militia, employing car bombs and dozens of militants.

"We will be working on our operational plans to eliminate ISIS elements, which are said to remain intact in Syria, in line with our conversation with President Trump," Erdogan said.

The Turkish president had announced plans last week to start an operation east of the Euphrates River in northern Syria to oust the YPG from the area that it largely controls. This week, he said the campaign could come at any moment. But on Friday, he cited the talk with Trump as a reason to wait.

The United States will probably end its air campaign against IS in Syria when it pulls out troops, US officials have said. Erdogan's foreign minister said the withdrawal plan would be discussed by the two countries in Washington in January.