US President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday referred to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as a friend whom he respects.

Axar.az reports that he made the remarks during a press conference at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida.

"President Erdogan is a friend of mine. He's a guy I like, respect. I think he respects me also," Trump said.

When asked about the potential withdrawal of US troops from Syria once he takes office later this month he answered:

"I won't tell you that, because that's part of a military strategy, but I will say it was Turkiye. But if you look at what happened with Syria, Russia was weakened, Iran was weakened. And he's a very smart guy, and he sent his people in there through different forms and different names, and they went in and they took over.”

The US has nearly 2,000 troops stationed in Syria.