After angering his allies .. Trump: We will withdraw from Syria slowly

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - US President Donald Trump said US forces would slowly withdraw from Syria and that the fight with the rest of the state would continue, as Republican Senator Lindsey Graham earlier said it was "smart".

"If anyone else did what he did in Syria, which was rife with the chaos of state organization, he never became president," Trump said in a tweet on Twitter. "To become a national hero."

He added that the state organization has mostly been dissolved and that American forces will slowly return home to join their families, adding that the battle with remnants of the organization will continue.

The US president surprised even his allies when he announced on December 19 that he would withdraw the US troops deployed in Syria, about a thousand troops, on the pretext that the Syrian state has already been defeated.

Criticism and welcome
But Trump's decision has been criticized by Western allies like France. Syria's democratic forces, which control large areas in northeastern Syria and Chen for months with the support of the international coalition, have also waged a military campaign against the eastern Euphrates River in rural Deir al-Zour.

In contrast, Russia and Iran welcomed the anticipated US withdrawal, while Turkey said it had postponed the military operation against the Kurdish People's Protection Forces (the main component of the Syrian Democratic Forces) with the aim of expelling them from the city of Manbaj in the north-eastern Aleppo countryside and other cities and towns east of Euphrates River near the Syrian - Turkish border.

For her part, close adviser to Trump Kylian Conway suggested that the president may rethink plans to withdraw soldiers. "In Iraq, Trump held a closed-door meeting and said, 'Watch what happens, because he has plans and I will not go ahead with his announcement, but he wanted me to convey that,'" she told Fox News Sunday.

Earlier, Republican Sen. Graham confirmed Trump's intention to withdraw US troops from Syria in a slow and smart way. Graham added that the US president was talking to Turkey to assure it that it would get a buffer zone with the Kurds and said that the last thing Trump wanted was a war between Ankara and the Kurds.