‘This isn’t just a betrayal, it feels like the final betrayal,’ say Syria’s Kurds abandoned to face Turkish assault

As Kurdish restaurant owner Walid Shekhi was setting up his new falafel shop in the Syrian city of Kobane, he thought of his hero when it came to naming it.

Patrons travelled from far and wide to eat at Trump Restaurant after it opened in January 2017, such was the respect for the incoming US president among Syria’s Kurds.

“It was an opportunity to express gratitude as a Kurd to America for supporting us in the fight against Isis,” Mr Shekhi said. The Kurds had been oppressed and persecuted for decades, he went on, but their fortunes could finally be about to change.

He, like countless others from the ethnic minority in the region, had projected a huge amount of hope onto Donald J Trump.

Mr Trump,…

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