Syrian Kurds say will help implement U.S.-Turkey ‘safe zone’
Brigadier-General Nicholas Pond (centre), a representative of the US-led coalition fighting the ISIS group, attends a meeting with commanders of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces in the north-western city of Hasaka in Syrian Kurdistan (Rojava), August 25, 2019. Photo: AFP
HASAKA, Syrian Kurdistan,— Syria’s Kurds said on Saturday they would support the implementation of a US-Turkey deal to set up a buffer zone in Syrian Kurdistan (Rojava) along the Turkish border.
The so-called “safe zone” agreed by Washington and Ankara earlier in August aims to create a buffer between the Turkish border and Syrian Kurdish areas controlled by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG).
The YPG have played a key role in the US-backed battle against the Islamic State group in Syria, but Ankara views them as “terrorists”.
On Saturday, Mazloum Kobani, the head of the YPG-led Syrian Democratic Forces, said his alliance would back the deal.
“We will strive to ensure the success of (US) efforts towards implementing the understanding… with the Turkish state,” he said.
“The SDF will be a positive party towards the success of this operation,” he told journalists in the northeastern town of Hasaka in Syrian Kurdistan.
US Central Command said late Friday that the SDF — which expelled the Islamic State group from their last patch of territory in eastern Syria in March — had destroyed outposts in the border area.
“The SDF destroyed military fortifications” on Thursday, it said in a statement on Twitter.
“This demonstrates (the) SDF’s commitment to support implementation of the security mechanism framework.”
On Wednesday, the US and Turkish defence ministers “confirmed their intent to take immediate, coordinated steps to implement the framework”, said a statement by the US Department of Defence.
Also on Saturday, a representative of the US-led coalition fighting IS said the buffer area sought to “limit any uncoordinated military operations”.
“We believe that this dialogue is the only way to secure the border area in a sustainable manner,” Brigadier-General Nicholas Pond said.
On August 7, Turkish and US officials agreed to establish a joint operations centre to oversee the creation of the “safe zone”.
But retired general Joseph Votel, the former chief of US troops in the Middle East, has publicly opposed Ankara’s control of such a zone.
“Safe zones are generally established to protect people in conflict zones and are usually designed to be neutral, demilitarized, and focused on humanitarian purposes,” Votel wrote in the article with George Washington University Turkey expert Gonul Tol.
Little is known about its size or how it will work, but Ankara has said there would be observation posts and joint patrols.
Damascus has rejected the agreement as serving “Turkey’s expansionist ambitions”.
Syrian Kurds have established an autonomous region in Syrian Kurdistan (northeast Syria) amid the country’s eight-year war.
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.
But as the fight against IS winds down, the prospect of a US military withdrawal had stoked Kurdish fears of a long-threatened Turkish attack.
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.
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.
The Kurdish YPG forces expelled the Islamic State group from its last patch of territory in the eastern Syrian village of Baghouz in March 2019.
Turkey has already carried out two offensives into Syria in 2016 and 2018.
In 2016, the Turkish troops entered northern Syria in an area some 100 km east of Afrin to stop the Kurdish YPG forces from extending areas under their control and connecting Syrian Kurdistan’s Kobani and Hasaka in the east with Afrin canton in the west.
In January 2018, Turkish military forces backed pro-Ankara Syrian mercenary fighters to clear the YPG from its northwestern enclave of Afrin. In March 2018, the operation was completed with the capture of the Kurdish city of Afrin.
The flags of Turkey and pro-Ankara Syrian groups were raised in the Kurdish Afrin city and a statue of Kurdish hero Kawa, a symbol of resistance against oppressors, was torn down.
Residents of the Kurdish city and Human right groups accuse Turkey and pro-Ankara fighters of kidnappings for ransom, armed robberies and torture.
Copyright © 2019, respective author or news agency, Ekurd.net | AFP
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