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Pentagon says no U.S. ground force will help enforce Syria safe zone

Pentagon says no US ground force will help enforce Syria safe zone
Pentagon says no U.S. ground force will help enforce Syria safe zone

2019-10-19 00:00:00 - Source: Iraq News

US Defense Secretary Mark Esper, August 28, 2019. Photo: Reuters

WASHINGTON,— The United States is pressing ahead with its withdrawal from the Kurdish region in northeast Syria and no US ground troops will enforce the safe zone called for in the ceasefire agreement reached with Turkey, the Pentagon said Friday.

US forces will remain in contact with Turkey and Syrian Kurdish fighters that were allies of the US in the fight against the Islamic State group, Defense Secretary Mark Esper said.

The safe zone between Turkey and the Kurds in Syrian Kurdistan (Rojava) is supposed to be set up under an agreement announced Thursday by US Vice President Mike Pence under which Turkey agreed to suspend its military incursion in northern Syria for five days.

President Donald Trump effectively green-lit the assault by removing a small number of US special forces embedded with Kurdish fighters and serving as a tripwire against Turkish military action in Syria.

He later ordered the removal of all 1,000 or so US troops in northeast Syria.

“The United States is continuing our deliberate withdrawal from Northeastern Syria as previously announced,” Esper said in a statement.

“No US ground forces will participate in the enforcement of this safe zone.”

However, US forces will carry out aerial reconnaissance of the zone, a senior Pentagon official said. The purpose of this will be to watch over prisons holding Islamic State fighters.

Pompeo sees Syria ceasefire holding after rocky start

Washington’s top diplomat said Friday that 24 hours into a planned five-day pause in fighting between Turkish and Kurdish forces in northern Syria the situation was improving.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, talking to reporters after meetings at NATO headquarters in Brussels said: “There was some activity today, but we also saw some very positive activity.”

Scattered fighting was ongoing in northern Syria as Pompeo spoke, but he said that his understanding was that the 120-hour ceasefire began when the US-brokered ceasefire was announced on Thursday.

This means the 12-hour truce to allow Kurdish YPG fighters to perform a coordinated withdrawal from a 32-kilometre (20-mile) wide strip along the Kurdish border would run until Tuesday night.

“And we’re hopeful in the hours ahead that both the Turks who were part of the agreement alongside of us as well as the YPG fighters in the region will take seriously the commitments they made,” he said.

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has warned that he will restart the operation to seize the border strip next week after the US-brokered pause ends in the YPG militia does not fully withdraw.

But Kurdish officials accuse Turkey of violating the ceasefire and a war monitor group has said that 14 civilians have been killed by Turkish air strikes and mortar fire since it was declared.

Copyright © 2019, respective author or news agency, Ekurd.net | AFP

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