Russia, Turkey reach deal to remove Kurdish YPG from Syrian border

Syrian and Russian forces will deploy in northeast Syria to remove Kurdish YPG fighters and their weapons from the border with Turkey under a deal agreed on Tuesday which both Moscow and Ankara hailed as a triumph.
Hours after the deal was announced, the Turkish defense ministry said that the United States had told Turkey the withdrawal of Kurdish militants was complete from the “safe zone” Ankara demands in northern Syria.
There was no need to initiate another operation outside the current area of operation at this stage, the ministry said in a statement, effectively ending its military offensive that had begun on Oct. 9, drawing widespread criticism.
The agreement follows a U.S.-brokered truce which expired on Tuesday and underlines the dizzying changes in Syria since U.S. President Donald Trump announced the withdrawal of American troops two weeks ago ahead of Turkey’s cross-border offensive against the Kurds.
The Russia-Turkey agreement struck in the Black Sea resort of Sochi endorses the return of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces to the border alongside Russian troops, replacing the Americans who had patrolled the region for years with their former Kurdish allies.
Under the pact between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, the two countries said Russian military police and Syrian border guards would start removing the YPG 30 km (19 miles) from the Turkish border on Wednesday.
Six days later, Russian and Turkish forces will jointly start to patrol a narrower, 10 km strip of land in the “safe zone” that Ankara has long sought in northeast Syria.
U.S. Vice President Mike Pence voiced support for the establishment of the safe zone.
“We may well give the international community an opportunity to establish a safe zone between Turkey and the Kurdish population in Syria that will ensure peace and security,” Pence told a Heritage Foundation gala in Washington.
Earlier on Tuesday, Jim Jeffrey, the senior U.S. diplomat on Syria, dismissed the Sochi deal and questioned whether the Russians could get the YPG to leave the territory it covers.
“It’s full of holes,” he told a congressional hearing. “All I know it will stop the Turks from moving forward. Whether the Russians will ever live up to their commitment, which is very vague, to … get the YPG out of their areas, I don’t know.”
PUTIN CALLS DEAL ‘MOMENTOUS’
After six hours of talks with Erdogan in Sochi, Putin expressed satisfaction at decisions he described as “very important, if not momentous, to resolve what is a pretty tense situation which has developed on the Syrian-Turkish border”.
A senior Turkish official described it as an “excellent” deal which would achieve Turkey’s long-held goal of a border strip cleared of the YPG, which Ankara regards as a terrorist organization because of its links to insurgents inside Turkey.