Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan yesterday said that up to 1,300 Syrian Kurdish fighters have yet to vacate a northeastern Syrian area invaded by Ankara, hours before a five-day cease-fire between Turkish troops and Syrian Kurdish fighters was set to expire there.
Erdogan said up to 800 Syrian Kurdish fighters have already left under the deal that brought the pause in fighting following Turkey’s incursion and renewed threats to resume the offensive if all the Syrian Kurds do not depart before the deadline runs out at 10pm.
The Turkish leader spoke to reporters before traveling to Russia for a high-stakes meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The pullout occurred under the terms of a US-brokered deal for a 120-hour pause in fighting that expired last night, to allow Syrian Kurdish fighters to leave areas Turkey controls following its incursion into northeast Syrian to drive the fighters away from its borders.
Turkey launched the operation into northern Syria on Oct. 9, saying it aimed to push out Syrian Kurdish fighters it considers terrorists and an extension of a Kurdish insurgency within Turkey.
The move came days after US President Donald Trump suddenly announced he was pulling US forces out of the area, essentially abandoning Kurdish allies in the battle against the Islamic State group and paving the way for the incursion Turkey had long promised to carry out.
Turkey seeks to establish what it calls a “safe zone” extending more than 400km along the Turkish-Syrian border and about 30km inside Syria, where it plans to resettle about 2 million of the roughly 3.6 million Syrian refugees living in Turkey.
“If America does not keep to its promises, our offensive will continue from where it left off, with a much greater determination,” Erdogan said. “There is no place for the [Kurdish fighters] in Syria’s future. We hope that with Russia’s cooperation, we will rid the region of separatist terror.”
Erdogan and Putin are meeting in Sochi for talks expected to focus on border areas that are held by Syrian government forces.
Although Turkish officials say the cease-fire agreement specifically covers a roughly 120km stretch between the Syrian border towns of Tal Abyad and Ras al-Ayn, Erdogan has made it clear that he wants Turkish military presence along the full stretch of the border from the Euphrates River to Syria’s border with Iraq.
Syrian state media yesterday reported that Syrian government forces entered new areas in the northeastern province of Hassakeh as part of an agreement they reached with the main Syrian Kurdish group in the area.
The areas that the Syrian government and the Kurds agreed that the government would enter are outside the cease-fire agreement reached between the US and Turkey.
Syrian President Bashar Assad visited territory captured from Turkey-backed Syrian fighters in the northwestern province of Idlib, where he described Erdogan as a “thief.”
State media showed images of Assad standing among Syrian soldiers in what the report said was strategic southern Idlib territory.
The media quoted Assad as calling Erdogan a “thief who robbed factories, wheat and fuel and is today stealing territory” — apparently referring to Turkey’s invasion this month into northeastern Syria to push out Syrian Kurdish fighters.
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