The Pentagon strongly denied on Friday accusations that it had abandoned its Syrian Kurdish allies to a Turkish military onslaught, which it said was destabilizing the region and doing “dramatic harm” to U.S.-Turkey relations. U.S. President Trump’s decision to pull back troops from Syria’s border with Turkey has been widely criticized in Washington as a tacit “green light” for a Turkish offensive that intensified on Friday, with Turkish air and artillery strikes on Kurdish militia. “Nobody green-lighted this operation by Turkey, just the opposite.
