“I think Turkey is very smart… Turkey did an unfriendly takeover, without a lot of lives being lost. I can say that Assad was a butcher, what he did to children,” Trump told reporters at his residence in Florida.

Years into the war, HTS took over parts of northwestern Syria, which borders Turkey. It was from there that the organization and allied rebel groups launched the offensive that ousted Assad from power. Turkey has carried out military strikes inside Syria and has said it is ready to provide armed support to the country’s new Islamist-led government set up by the rebels.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s top priority in Syria was to rid the country of Kurdish separatist fighters – a goal supported by the new government, it has said.

“Turkey is a major force, by the way, and Erdogan is somebody I got along with great,” Trump said. “But he has a major military force. And his has not been worn out with war… He’s built a very strong, powerful army.”