ISTANBUL,— Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Monday that if a planned safe zone in northern Syria is not established, and if threats continue against Turkey, Ankara will launch a military operation east of the Euphrates river.
Turkey has been in talks with the United States over the establishment of a safe zone across its border in Syrian Kurdistan (Rojava) in northeast Syria, where the United States supports the Kurdish YPG militia. Ankara sees the YPG as a terrorist organization.
In an interview with broadcaster TGRT Haber, Cavusoglu also said he hopes an agreement will be reached after talks on Monday with U.S. special envoy for Syria James Jeffrey, who is visiting Turkey.
Ankara wants Kurdish YPG fighters to withdraw from the border area, while Washington wants guarantees that its Kurdish-led allies in the campaign to defeat Islamic State in Syria will not be harmed.
Cavusoglu said on Monday that talks with the United States on the safe zone have slowed, adding that Turkey had told Washington that it should not use the fighting in Syria’s northwestern Idlib province as a pretext for disregarding the proposed safe zone further east.
He repeated Turkey’s frustration that a deal with the United States for the withdrawal of YPG forces from the town of Manbij had still not been implemented, more than a year after it was agreed, and warned that Turkey will act unilaterally if talks on the safe zone stall.
“If the safe zone is not established and threats towards our country continue, we will launch the operation in the east of the Euphrates,” he said.
“The Americans sent Jeffrey and said there were new proposals in the talks that will start today. We hope an agreement can be reached on this. Concrete steps are needed on this now.”
In January 2019, a senior Syrian Kurdish politician and former co-chair of the Diplomatic Committee of the Democratic Union Party (PYD) Salih Muslim said that he supported a proposed buffer zone along the Turkish border as long as Ankara has no involvement. “We really need a safe area, but without Turkish fingers.”, Salih Muslim told Kurdistan24 TV.
Syria’s Kurds rejected a “security zone” under Turkish control along the Syrian side of the two countries’ border.
Senior Kurdish political leader Aldar Khalil said the Kurds would accept the deployment of UN forces along the separation line between Kurdish fighters and Turkish troops to ward off a threatened offensive.
Since December 2018, Ankara has been threatening to launch a new offensive against the Syrian Kurdish fighters.
The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces expelled the Islamic State group from its last patch of territory in the eastern Syrian village of Baghouz in March 2019.
In 2013, the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party PYD — the political branch of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) — has established three autonomous Cantons of Jazeera, Kobani and Afrin and a Kurdish government across Syrian Kurdistan in 2013. On March 17, 2016, Kurdish authorities announced the creation of a “federal region” made up of those semi-autonomous regions in Syrian Kurdistan.
Washington has for years supported the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in the fight against the Islamic State group in Syria, as part of an international anti-jihadist coalition dominated by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG). But U.S. President Donald Trump abruptly announced the pullout from Syria.
U.S. President Donald Trump agreed “100%” with keeping a military presence in Syria. U.S. said in February to leave some 400 U.S. troops in Syria over the longer run. 200 troops to remain in the Syrian Kurdistan in the northeast as part of a multinational force and 200 to remain at an outpost in al-Tanf in southern Syria.
The Kurdish PYD and its powerful military wing YPG/YPJ, considered the most effective fighting force against IS in Syria and U.S. has provided them with arms. The YPG, which is the backbone of the SDF forces, has seized swathes of Syria from Islamic State.
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