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N’DJAMENA (Chad): French President Emmanuel Macron on Sunday criticised US President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw American forces from Syria, saying “an ally must be reliable”.
In a sign of the growing diplomatic rift between the two leaders, Macron said “I deeply regret the decision” by Trump to pullout US troops.
Trump last week ordered a complete troop pullout from Syria, asserting that the IS group had been defeated, as well as a significant withdrawal from Afghanistan. Analysts said the momentous reversal of years of US foreign policy will leave the war-torn regions at risk of continued and potentially heightened bloodshed.
France has said it will maintain its participation in the coalition fighting IS in Syria. “To be an ally is to fight shoulder to shoulder,” Macron said in Chad’s capital N’Djamena with his Chadian counterpart Idriss Deby, adding that France was doing just that in the fight against jihadist groups in Chad.
Even early on, when Macron and Trump shared a handshake at their first meeting at a NATO gathering in Brussels in May 2017, photographers focused on the white-knuckle grip of the presidents’ handshake as the two tried to out-muscle each other.
In July 2017, when Trump flew into Paris for Bastille Day, France’s national holiday, Trump praised his host, saying: “France is America’s first and oldest ally.” But Trump raised eyebrows when attempting to compliment Macron’s wife Brigitte by telling her she was “in good shape”.
Later, despite Macron repeatedly appealing to Trump to preserve the Iran nuclear deal, Trump exited the multiparty agreement negotiated by his predecessor Barack Obama and reimposed punishing sanctions on the Iranians. Then in November, Trump publicly lambasted Macron and mocked the French president’s approval rating over remarks about Europe taking greater responsiblity for its own defence.
On Sunday Macron indicated his own disappointment at the frayed relations with the US. “An ally must be reliable, to coordinate with its other allies,” Macron said.
Published in Dawn, December 24th, 2018
