WASHINGTON-Underscoring the fast-paced diplomacy surrounding the White house’s attempt to force Turkey to call for a cease-fire in Syria, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan abruptly reversed course Wednesday and said he would meet with Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo when they arrive in Turkey on Thursday.

Earlier, Erdogan ruled out a meeting and said he would only meet with President Donald trump. Trump is not going to Turkey. 

Pence and Pompeo head to Ankara on Wednesday afternoon. News of Erdogan’s refusal to meet with them was first reported by British broadcaster Sky News.

Erdogan subsequently confirmed he would meet with senior U.S. officials in a brief statement to Turkish media that was tweeted by his communications Director.

It was not immediately clear why he changed his mind. 

“We have every expectation that we will meet with President Erdogan,” Pompeo told Fox News on Wednesday. “We need them to pull back, we need a cease-fire, after which we can start to rally it all again.”

But later Wednesday, trump seemed to question his administration’s efforts. 

“It’s not our problem,” trump told reporters in the oval office hours before Pence and Pompeo travel to Turkey.

Read more: House votes to condemn President trump’s withdrawal from Syria

In a phone call on Monday, Erdogan rejected trump’s request to halt Turkish military operations in northeastern Syria. The Turkish leader said he would not negotiate with Kurdish forces about what his government is trying to oust from the area. 

“They say, “to declare a cease-fire.” We will never declare a ceasefire, ” Erdogan told reporters on Tuesday as he attended a regional business summit in the Azerbaijani capital late at night. 

In an address to Turkey’s Parliament on Wednesday, Erdogan said Turkey’s military offensive would end if Syrian Kurdish fighters left the border area in northeastern Syria, the official Anadolu news Agency reported. 

The trump administration is trying to contain the escalating domestic and international fallout from trump’s decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria, a move that paved the way for Turkey to attack Syrian Kurdish fighters it considers terrorists . U.S.-led coalition forces have been successfully cooperating with Syrian Kurds in the fight against the Islamic state group over the past few years. 

Who are the Kurds?: Middle Eastern people with ” no friends but mountains”

Lawmakers in Congress, returning from a two-week recess, lashed out at trump’s decision and laid the groundwork for a legislative crackdown Wednesday on Turkey that would go beyond the White house’s move to sanction Turkey over its military incursion. 

The speaker of the house Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., derided trump’s sanctions on Turkey as “wet noodles” and said she would push for a bipartisan resolution rebuking the President’s withdrawal, which she and others portray as a betrayal of Kurdish militants who helped the US. fight Islamic state terrorists in Syria. 

“The President has given the green light to Turkey to go and commit this humanitarian catastrophe for the Kurds, which makes us an unreliable ally,” Pelosi told reporters on Tuesday. “And then there was the wet noodles for his sanctions, which just weren’t up to the task.”

Republicans, including Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, warned that “leaving the field now” would allow the Islamic state group, also known as ISIS, to return and create a vacuum in Syria to be filled by Iran and Russia. 

But in his oval office speech, trump rejected growing criticism on Capitol hill and from other allies in the region, further downplaying the Alliance with the Kurds. Last week, trump complained that the Kurds did not fight allied powers in world war II. 

“They are not angels,” trump said Wednesday. “Go back and take a look.” 

Read more: trump says Turkey’s invasion of Syria “not our problem”

Also on Wednesday, more than 90 house Republicans introduced a bill that would require the President to impose far-reaching sanctions against Turkey.

Legislation led by Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., aimed at banning U.S. military deals with Turkey, as well as slapping economic sanctions on Erdogan and other senior members of his government.

“It is very important that we are confident that we support America’s global engagement and that we believe the costs of inaction,” Cheney said Wednesday.

Cheney’s proposal mirrors the sanctions bill that Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S. C., and Sen. Chris van HOLLEN, D-Md., are developments in the Senate.

And a house resolution condemning trump’s decision to withdraw from Syria passed with overwhelming support, in a rare bipartisan rebuke at a time when the President is trying to shore up GOP support to avert impeachment. The house voted 354-60 with every Democrat and more than two-thirds of Republicans supporting the measure.

Over the last few years, Syria’s Kurds have carved out a semi-autonomous state on territory that once belonged to the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad. While Syria’s Kurds are considered to be some of the region’s bravest and most able military fighters, they have recognized they are ultimately no match for Turkey’s far larger and better equipped military. After Trump announced the U.S. troop withdrawal, Kurdish leaders entered into an agreement with Assad to try to stem Turkey’s advance. Assad’s forces, in turn, are backed by Russia’s military, an alliance that has enabled him to slowly turn the tide of Syria’s nearly decade-long civil war in his favor. 

While Russia has moved to fill the void left by the US withdrawal from the conflict, French foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said in an interview with French TV channel BFM on Wednesday that France is now seeking help from Russia, given their “common interests” in defeating ISIS in Syria. France and several other countries have also banned arms sales to Turkey. The US still sells weapons to Turkey. 

In a speech in the oval office, trump, who described his decision to withdraw from Syria as” strategically brilliant ” despite bipartisan criticism, brushed off reports that Russian troops had entered territory abandoned by the US.

“They have a lot of sand there,” trump said. “There’s a lot of sand that they can play with.”

Trump invited Pelosi and McConnell, along with other congressional leaders, to the White house on Wednesday afternoon for a meeting on the crisis. But, the top Democrats in Congress have come out to trump and the leading Republicans in Congress.

The withdrawal of U.S. troops: Russia seized key outposts of the USA in Syria

Pompeo accused Erdogan of “creating a huge risk” in the region with his invasion. And denied that trump’s decision to withdraw U.S. troops from the region allowed Turkey to enter it. 

“He didn’t cover this invasion,” Pompeo said on Fox, while trump repeated the invasion. 

“I was very, very closely connected when President Erdogan said, informed, notified us that he was ready to move and that he was going to do it within hours,” Pompeo said.  “President trump saw that there were American soldiers on the way … The President has made the right decision at this point to get American troops out of the way.”

A senior trump administration official declined to elaborate on the schedule of the U.S. delegation to Turkey, but said Pence and Pompeo would use the threat of additional U.S. sanctions as leverage on Erdogan to stop their military’s advance into northeastern Syria.

The Turkish leader has so far shrugged off U.S. sanctions and given no interest in a cease-fire, in part because Russia’s military presence makes him the de facto mediator in the conflict. Erdogan said the offensive will continue until Turkey fully achieves its goals, which is to create a “safe zone” between Turkey and Syria that acts as a buffer zone for Syrian Kurds. The “safe zone” will also allow Turkey to resettle several million Syrian refugees currently living on its territory in unstable border areas.

“They are pressing us to stop the operation. They announced the sanctions. Our goal is clear. We are not worried about any sanctions, ” Erdogan said on his return from Azerbaijan, according to comments first published by Reuters.

What we know: Turkey’s offensive in Syria