Syrian Kurds protest against the carve-up of their northeastern heartland by Ankara and Moscow
QAMISHLI (Syria), Oct 25 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Kurdish forces in northeastern Syria left several positions along the long border with Turkey on Thursday, complying with a deal that sees Damascus, Ankara and Moscow carve up their now-defunct autonomous region.
Russian forces have started patrols along the flashpoint frontier, filling the vacuum left by a US troop withdrawal that effectively returned a third of the country to the Moscow-backed regime of President Bashar al-Assad.
Russian and Syrian government forces were deploying across the Kurdish heartland to assist “the removal of YPG elements and their weapons”.
Kurdish forces had already vacated a 120-kilometre segment of the border strip – an Arab-majority area between the towns of Ras al-Ain and Tal Abyad.
The SDF withdrawal from that area came after Turkey and its Syrian proxies launched their deadly cross-border offensive on October 9.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is embattled on the domestic political front, hopes to use the pocket to resettle at least half of the 3.6 million Syrian refugees his country hosts.
Under the Sochi deal, the area will remain under the full control of Turkey, unlike the rest of the projected buffer zone which will eventually be jointly patrolled by Turkey and Russia.
Some 300,000 people have fled their homes since the start of the Turkish offensive and many Kurds among them seem unlikely to return.
Some US forces remain in eastern districts of Syria, where government forces have been deploying but have not yet re-established full control.
“We have secured the oil and, therefore, a small number of US troops will remain in the area where they have the oil,” US Pres Donald Trump said on Wednesday.
The Syrian government is keen to reclaim the northeast, which is home to the country’s main oilfields and some of its most fertile farmland.
In a phone call with Russia’s defence minister and military chief on Wednesday, Mazloum Abdi, the commanding general of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), thanked Moscow for “defusing the war in our region and sparing civilians its scourge,” the SDF said. — NNN-AGENCIES
