Trump acknowledges Erdogan's role in Assad;s fall - Athens should beware

So what President-elect Donald Trump on Monday claimed about Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is not taken lightly. Trump said that Erdogan was behind the rapid fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria last week, as Israeli officials cautioned the US to keep a watchful eye on the Sunni authoritarian leader.

Speaking to reporters at Mar-a-Lago, Trump declared that the “very smart” Erdogan directed the rebellion that led to the overthrow of Syria’s brutal Assad regime on Dec. 8, noting that the rebellion was “another way to fight.”

”Nobody knows who the other side is, but I do. You know it is Turkey, OK? Turkey is the one behind it,” he said. “And those people that went in are controlled by Turkey, and that’s OK.”

Asked whether Trump would remove the 900 American troops currently in Syria when he takes office next month, the president-elect reminded journalists that “nobody knows what the final outcome is going to be in the region, causing Kurds to shiver.

”I don’t think that I want to have our soldiers killed, but I don’t think that will happen now anyway, because the one [Assad regime] side has been decimated,” Trump said.

“I think Turkey is very smart. [Erdogan] is a very smart guy, he’s very tough,” Trump said, “but Turkey did an unfriendly takeover without a lot of lives being lost.”

While the overthrow of the Assad regime was welcomed by the Western world, Israeli officials on Monday warned the US against celebrating the rise of Turkish power in Syria.

“Erdogan is a disciple of the Muslim Brotherhood. He is an Islamist radical in Turkey. He is behind Syria’s rebels that came from al Qaeda, from Daesh, from other very radical groups,” Israeli scholar and former Knesset member Ruth Wasserman Lande told The New York Post in Israel on Monday.

While many in Athens laud the Greek-Turkish dialogue and keepin channels open with Ankara, they should beware that the Turkish Sultan is far more conniving than he may appear at any time. As he has threatened Greece before, he may come some night…