WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 18th October, 2019) US Senator Lindsay Graham in a press conference on Thursday said that he is hopeful President Donald Trump will sign congressional sanctions measures against Turkey for its military offensive in northern Syria.
"My hope is that he will see them as leverage," Graham said when asked whether the lawmakers expect Trump will sign the sanctions legislation. "These are wide ranging and hard hitting."
Earlier in the day, Vice President Mike Pence after talks in Ankara said the United States and Turkey reached a 120-hour ceasefire to remove Kurdish fighters from north Syria.
Graham, joined by a bi-partisan group of senators, said the sanctions go above and beyond those imposed by the Trump administration earlier against senior Turkish officials and entities collaborating with the Turkish military.
The senator also said the measure will sanction the Turkish military and prohibit US military assistance to Ankara, prohibit any US person from purchasing sovereign debt from Turkey and deny top Turkish officials access to the United States.
The measure will also sanction Turkey's Halkbank, which Graham said has been involved in "very nefarious activities" trying to evade sanctions against Iran.
In addition, Congress will also consider Turkey's purchase of Russian S-400 air defense systems to be a significant event mandating Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) sanctions being imposed within 30 days, Graham said.
Congress wants Trump to be successful, and the US-Turkish relationship is worth salvaging, but it cannot be salvaged until Ankara changes course, Graham said. The sanctions can be lifted immediately if Turkey stops the killing in Syria and returns its forces to where they were before the military operation, Graham said.
