House committees give the presidentīs energy secretary a deadline of 18 October to turn over documents related to Trumpīs Ukraine dealingsSign up for the US briefing and get a new perspective 10.48pm BST Yesterday, Donald Trump defended his decision to withdraw US troops from Syria, abandoning US-allied Kurds, by noting that they `didnīt help us in the second world war, they didnīt help us with Normandy`. It is unclear whether any Kurds were at the Normandy landings, but there is evidence that some of them fought on the side of the Allied forces during World War II.Some background: The Kurds, despite being the fourth-largest ethnic group in the Middle East, are a stateless and often marginalized people whose homeland stretches across Turkey, Syria, Iran, Iraq and Armenia. After World War I, the Alliesī negotiations with representatives of the defeated Ottoman Empire initially involved provisions for an autonomous Kurdistan. But that was abandoned by the ratification of the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923. Multiple attempts at greater autonomy or nationhood since then have been suppressed or quashed. 10.33pm BST Continue reading...
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