The Turkish Defence Ministry on Tuesday said it had concluded all preparations for a military incursion into northern Syria.

This is coming just a day after United States President, Donald Trump announced that he would withdraw American troops from the region so that Turkey could start its own operations.

Trump had on Monday vowed to pull back American forces from military involvement in the Middle East and leave it to others ‘to figure the situation out’.

However, some of his Republican allies have condemned the action,  accusing him of abandoning his allies in the region and emboldening regional enemies.

In a series of Twitter messages, Trump defended his decision to clear the way for a Turkish military operation which could sweep away America’s Kurdish allies near the Syrian border.

He argued that the internecine conflict among forces in the region was not a top priority for a war-weary US.

“I held off this fight for almost 3 years but it is time for us to get out of these ridiculous Endless Wars, many of them tribal and bring our soldiers home,” Trump wrote.“We will fight where it is to our benefit and only fight to win. Turkey,  Europe, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Russia and the Kurds will now have to figure the situation out,” he tweeted. 

However, after a flood of criticism from congressional Republicans, Trump returned to Twitter hours later, saying that he would prevent Turkey from going too far, without explaining what he meant or where that line would be drawn.

“As I have stated strongly before and just to reiterate, if Turkey does anything that I, in my great and unmatched wisdom consider to be off limits, I will totally destroy and obliterate the Economy of Turkey (I’ve done before!),” he wrote.

Pentagon spokesman, Jonathan Hoffman said that Trump’s tweets had removed any ambiguity about whether the President had endorsed a Turkish attack on the Kurds.

“The department of defence made it clear to Turkey as did the president that we do not endorse a Turkish operation in Northern Syria. The US armed forces will not support, or be involved in any operation,” Hoffman said.

American officials have also indicated that the 100 to 150 US military personnel deployed to northeastern Syria would be pulled back in advance of any Turkish operation but that they would not be completely withdrawn from Syria.

The Kurdish forces in the area, part of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have been the most reliable American ally in the region for years. Turkey has long considered the Kurdish fighters to be terrorists and has lobbied the US to abandon support for them.

As with Barack Obama’s decision to pull out American troops from Iraq in 2011, the opposition says Trump’s withdrawal would create a vacuum for remnants of the Islamic State, President Bashar al-Assad of Syria and others to surge forward again.

The opposition however argued that the White House decision amounts to an abandonment of Syrian-Kurdish fighters who are long-standing US allies in the fight against Islamic State (ISIS) and it exposes the Kurds to attack by Turkey.

The move by Trump also helps to fulfil his domestic agenda. He has been impatient in wanting to pull all US troops out of Syria, as part of his ‘America First’ policy and retreat from the global stage.