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Trump congratulates Turkish President Erdogan on referendum victory

Xinhua, April 18, 2017 Adjust font size:

U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday congratulated Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on his recent referendum victory, the White House said.

In a statement released Monday evening, the White House said that Trump called Erdogan "to congratulate him on his recent referendum victory" and to discuss the United States' military assault on a Syrian military airfield early this month.

Trump thanked Erdogan for supporting this action by the United States, and they agreed on the importance of holding Syrian President Bashar al-Assad accountable, it said.

The statement was released hours after White House spokesman Sean Spicer declined to comment on the result of the constitutional reform referendum in Turkey until a review of the vote by an international electoral monitoring mission is finishe d.

"There is an international commission that is reviewing this and issues a report in 10 to 12 days," said Spicer at a briefing. "We will wait and let them do their jobs."

Turkey's Supreme Electoral Council declared late Sunday that the "yes" camp in the constitutional reform referendum had won amid an outcry from the opposition that the voting was rigged.

The referendum victory would give Erdogan sweeping new powers, including directly appointing ministers and high court judges. Endi