Press Releases

On Wednesday, U.S. Rep. Michael Waltz (R-Fla.) joined Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) and over 90 of his Republican colleagues in the U.S. House of Representatives on a bill to impose sanctions on Turkey in response to Ankara’s military offensive against U.S.-allied Kurdish forces in Northern Syria.

“The situation in Syria is serious, with regional and global implications,” said Waltz, who has been outspoken on the potential for a re-emergence of ISIS as a result of U.S. troop withdrawal. “With our small amount of troops removed from the region, our Kurdish allies now have no allies to fight ISIS with – and as we saw in Iraq, when America leaves a vacuum, bad things tend to happen.”

Turkey invaded northern Syria last week after U.S. troops left the region. On Tuesday, Waltz traveled to the White House to discuss the situation in Syria. He has been working closely with the House, the Senate and the White House on the sanctions package.

“It’s very important that we make sure that we maintain America’s global engagement and that we consider the costs of inaction, we consider the costs of having to go back into situations where we’ve withdrawn from,” said Cheney on the resurgence of ISIS. “We do not want to repeat the mistakes of the Obama era, which created the mess that we have inherited."

“I felt compelled to join my colleagues on this important legislation,” Waltz said. “We cannot take the risk of an ISIS 2.0, so we must do what we can in Congress to mitigate Turkey’s aggression in Syria.”

The full text of the legislation can be found here and below.