Bolton, in a radio interview, said he, President Donald Trump, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo understood Turkey had committed “not to harm the Kurds who had fought with us against IS,” according to Reuters.

Bolton had suggested on Tuesday that protecting Washington’s Kurdish allies would be a pre-condition of the US withdrawal troops from Syria, which began earlier on Friday. That drew a rebuke from Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, who called his comments “a serious mistake.”

“What we’re still pursuing in these military-to-military conversations are assurances and protocols and procedures so that everybody feels comfortable with how this is going to happen. And we’re hoping those discussions, which will continue next week, will produce results that are acceptable on both sides,” he said in an interview with Hugh Hewitt, according to a transcript.

The US-led coalition against Islamic State began the process of withdrawing from Syria on Friday, making good on Trump’s announcement that he had decided to remove 2,000 US troops.

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