The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has agreed with the US vice-president, Mike Pence, to suspend Ankara’s operation on Kurdish-led forces in north-east Syria for the next five days in order to allow Kurdish troops to withdraw, potentially halting the latest bloodshed in Syria’s long war, according to the Guardian.
Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighters would pull back from Turkey’s proposed 20-mile (32km) deep “safe zone” on its border, Pence told reporters in Ankara on Thursday evening after hours of meetings with Turkish officials.
“It will be a pause for 120 hours while the US oversees the withdrawal of the YPG [a Kurdish unit within the SDF] … Once that is completed, Turkey has agreed to a permanent ceasefire,” Pence said, adding that preparations were already underway.
“Great news out of Turkey!” Donald Trump tweeted minutes before Pence spoke. “Millions of lives will be saved.”
https://see.news/putin-erdogan-to-discuss-turkeys-operation-in-syria-kremlin/
The arrangement, however, appeared to be a significant US embrace of Turkey’s position in the weeklong conflict. No comment was immediately forthcoming from the SDF, who were not involved in the negotiations. Damascus and Moscow, that have also moved troops into the contested border zone, also had no immediate comment.
When asked, Pence remained silent, on whether the agreement amounted to a second abandonment of the US’s former Kurdish allies in the fight against the Islamic State or not.
The ceasefire plan was met with unofficial scepticism by many Syrian Kurds on Thursday night, as it gives the Turks what they had sought to achieve with the military operation in the first place: removal of Kurdish-led forces from the border “safe zone”.
A statement released after the meeting reiterated the US understanding of Turkey’s need for a safe zone which will be “primarily enforced by the Turkish Armed Forces” after the Kurdish withdrawal, implying that Ankara still intends to occupy the 440km stretch of land, which includes several important Kurdish towns and a major highway.
It also made no mention of the presence of Syrian government and Russian troops, who were invited to the area by the SDF to help defend against the Turkish attack.
“Our people did not want this war. We welcome the ceasefire, but we will defend ourselves in the event of any attack … Ceasefire is one thing and surrender is another thing, and we are ready to defend ourselves. We will not accept the occupation of northern Syria,” the Kurdish political leader Saleh Muslim told local television.
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