 The Central Asia-Caucasus Institute's Turkey Analyst publication reported that Turkish authorities may view the buffer zone as a way to "move beyond Kobanî" and restart the by that point highly troubled US- Turkey relations, while giving political leverage to US President Donald Trump to continue delaying the implementation of US congress-mandated sanctions against Turkey, which were voted in due to the Turkish purchase of S-400 missile systems from Russia.The conservative US Washington Examiner described the establishment of the buffer zone as "appeasement", which it dubbed "a terrible idea".The publication described Turkish intelligence as "deeply flawed and politicised", claimed that members of Turkish President Erdogan's family and even Erdogan himself might have "supported" both ISIL and Al-Qaeda and asserted that Turkey's previous incursion into Northern Syria had ended in "anti-Kurdish ethnic cleansing".