President Trump might not be particularly thrilled with
Turkish President
Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the moment, but that didn't stop him from echoing one of his Turkish counterpart's favorite arguments.Speaking to reporters Wednesday while meeting with Italian President Sergio Mattarella, Trump defended his decision to withdraw U.S. troops from northern
Syria and, in the process, abandon Washington's Kurdish allies, by pointing out that the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, are "worse at terror and more of a terrorist threat, in many ways" than the
Islamic State, whom Kurdish forces, including the PKK, have fought against alongside U.S. forces. Erdogan, who considers Kurdish nationalists forces a security threat against Turkey, has been pushing that idea for quite some time.
Trump later reiterated the point during the press conference and said that even
ISIS respects the PKK because its fighters are "as tough or tougher" than ISIS, while also making the case that the allegiance between U.S. and Kurdish forces was too pricey.Now, as some experts have pointed out, the PKK is not an entirely peaceful political party, but rather a pro-independence movement that has been in an armed conflict with
Turkey for decades and is recognized as a terrorist organization by the U.S. So, while Trump may be generally misinformed about the historical context surrounding the PKK's struggle with Ankara and off base in his ISIS comparisons, there is some validity to the idea that they are "no angels," as the president argued.