Lavrov: Russian military could police Syria-Turkey ‘buffer zone’
“We have experience in combining ceasefire agreements, safety measures and the creation of de-escalation zones with the roll-out of Russian military police,” Lavrov was cited as saying, according to Reuters.
“Such a possibility is being kept open for this buffer zone.”
Lavrov was referring to a joint Russian-Turkish buffer zone around opposition-held Idlib, where Turkey has forces stationed. The zone was put in place last October to stave off a regime offensive, which international observers feared would lead to a bloodbath.
It is unclear whether Moscow could persuade Ankara to establish a similar buffer along the Turkey-Syria border.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov speaks in Moscow, February 19, 2019. Photo: Yuri Kadobnov / AFP
Turkey has been pushing for the creation of such a buffer to push back the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), which Ankara considers a local offshoot of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
The YPG makes up the backbone of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which spearheaded the ground war against the Islamic State (ISIS) group. The SDF has cornered the jihadists in the village of Baghuz in Syria’s Deir ez-Zor near the Iraqi border.
In December 2018, US President Donald Trump shocked America’s Kurdish allies and even members of his own administration when he announced the imminent withdrawal of some 2,000 US troops stationed in Manbij – a northern Syrian city liberated from ISIS by the SDF.
Although Trump seems to have backpedaled on a full withdrawal, suggesting the US presence could instead be reduced to “hundreds”, the drawdown has spooked SDF commanders who fear a threatened Turkish invasion of the Syrian territories under Kurdish control after a US withdrawal.
Ankara has told the US it is willing to administer the buffer zone. The Syrian regime in Damascus, however, says Turkish troops in northern Syria are occupiers and has repeatedly demanded their withdrawal.
Russia was invited to intervene in support of the Syrian regime in 2015. Moscow launched airstrikes and deployed troops to fight the armed opposition and jihadists trying to unseat President Bashar al-Assad.
Eager to prevent a new Turkish operation in northern Syria, like the one which forced the YPG out of Afrin in Syria’s north west in March 2018, the SDF and its political wing, the Syrian Democratic Council (SDC), have voiced their readiness to negotiate a possible settlement with the regime.
Under any such deal, the Kurdish provinces of northern Syria – also known as Rojava – would like greater autonomy under a new Syrian constitution, and protections for their cultural and political rights. They would also like to maintain their own forces on the frontier.
Russian military police already have a presence in Manbij.
