Tag Archives: Safe Zone

U.S. ground troops will not enforce Syria safe zone: defense secretary

U.S. ground troops will not enforce Syria safe zone: defense secretary
By Idrees Ali

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper said on Friday that no U.S. troops will take part in enforcing the so-called safe zone in northern Syria and the United States “is continuing our deliberate withdrawal from northeastern Syria.”

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan earlier on Friday said Turkey will set up a dozen observation posts across northeast Syria, insisting that a planned “safe zone” will extend much further than U.S. officials said was covered under a fragile ceasefire deal.

The truce, announced by U.S. Vice President Mike Pence after talks in Ankara with Erdogan, sets out a five-day pause to let the Kurdish-led SDF militia pull out of the Turkish “safe zone.”

The deal was aimed at easing a crisis that saw President Donald Trump order a hasty and unexpected U.S. retreat, which his critics say amounted to abandoning loyal Kurdish allies that fought for years alongside U.S. troops against Islamic State.

“No U.S. ground forces will participate in the enforcement of the safe zone, however we will remain in communication with both Turkey and the SDF,” Esper told reporters, referring to the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

He will be traveling to the Middle East and Brussels in the coming days to discuss issues including the future of counter-Islamic State campaign.

Esper said he had spoken with his Turkish counterpart on Friday and reiterated that Ankara must adhere to the ceasefire deal and ensure safety of people in areas controlled by Turkish forces.

“Protecting religious and ethnic minorities in the region continues to be a focus for the administration. This ceasefire is a much needed step in protecting those vulnerable populations,” Esper said.

He added that he reminded Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar of Turkey’s responsibility for maintaining security of the Islamic State prisoners in areas affected by Turkey’s incursion.

A U.S. defense official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the United States would continue aerial surveillance in northeastern Syria to monitor prisons holding alleged Islamic State militants.

(Reporting by Idrees Ali; editing by Grant McCool and Cynthia Osterman)

Turkey presses offensive in Syria, Erdogan hits out at critics

By Daren Butler and Orhan Coskun

ISTANBUL/ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkey pressed its military offensive against U.S.-allied Kurdish fighters in northeast Syria on Thursday, shelling towns and bombing targets from the air in an operation that has forced thousands of people to flee their homes.

At least 23 fighters with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and eight civilians, two them SDF administrators, have been killed, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The SDF has not given a casualty toll, while six fighters with Turkey-backed rebel groups have also been killed.

More than 60,000 people have fled since the offensive began, the Observatory added. The towns of Ras al-Ain and Darbasiya, some 60 km to the east, have been largely deserted as a result of the attack.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan told members of his AK Party in Ankara that 109 militants had been killed so far in the two days of fighting, while Kurds said they were resisting the assault.

According to a senior Turkish security official, armed forces struck weapons and ammunition depots, gun and sniper positions, tunnels and military bases.

Jets conducted operations up to 30 km (18 miles) into Syria, and a Reuters witness saw shells exploding just outside the town of Tel Abyad.

“The operation is currently continuing with the involvement of all our units… 109 terrorists have been killed so far,” Erdogan said in a speech to members of his AK Party in Ankara.

NATO member Turkey has said it intends to create a “safe zone” for the return of millions of refugees to Syria.

But world powers fear the operation could intensify Syria’s eight-year-old conflict, and runs the risk of Islamic State prisoners escaping from camps amid the chaos.

Erdogan sought to assuage those concerns, saying that militants from the jihadist group would not be allowed to rebuild a presence in the region.

Taking aim at the European Union and Arab powers Saudi Arabia and Egypt, which have voiced opposition to the operation, Erdogan said those objecting to Turkey’s actions were dishonest.

He threatened to permit Syrian refugees in Turkey to move to Europe if EU countries described his forces’ move as an occupation. Turkey is hosting around 3.6 million people who have fled the conflict in Syria.

“They are not honest, they just make up words,” Erdogan said in a combative speech, singling out Saudi Arabia and Egypt. “We, however, take action and that is the difference between us.”

The Turkish operation began days after a pullback by U.S. forces from the border, and senior members of U.S. President Donald Trump’s own Republican Party condemned him for making way for the incursion.

The decision has been widely criticized as an abandonment of Syrian Kurds.

Ankara brands the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia as terrorists because of their ties to militants who have waged an insurgency in Turkey. But many members of Congress, and U.S. officials, credit the Kurds with fighting alongside American troops to defeat Islamic State militants.

“BAD IDEA”

The Kurdish-led authority in northern Syria said a prison struck by Turkish shelling holds “the most dangerous criminals from more than 60 nationalities” and Turkey’s attacks on its prisons risked “a catastrophe”.

The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) holds thousands of Islamic State fighters and tens of thousands of their relatives in detention.

There was no immediate comment on the situation in the prisons from Turkey.

Trump called the Turkish assault a “bad idea” and said he did not endorse it. He said he expected Turkey to protect civilians and religious minorities and prevent a humanitarian crisis – as Turkey has said it would.

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, usually a vocal Trump ally, has criticized his decision to withdraw U.S. troops from northeastern Syria and unveiled a framework for sanctions on Turkey with Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen.

Their proposed sanctions would target the assets of senior officials including Erdogan, mandate sanctions over Turkey’s purchase of a Russian S-400 missile defense system and impose visa restrictions.

They also would sanction anyone who conducted military transactions with Turkey or supported energy production for use by its armed forces, bar U.S. military assistance to Turkey and require a report on Erdogan’s net worth and assets.

The United Nations Security Council will meet on Thursday to discuss Syria at the request of the five European members, Britain, France, Germany, Belgium and Poland.

In a letter to the 15-member Council seen by Reuters, Turkey said its military operation would be “proportionate, measured and responsible”.

The 22-member Arab League said it would hold an emergency meeting on Saturday.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned Turkey’s military incursion and cautioned about the possibility of ethnic cleansing.

“Israel is prepared to extend humanitarian assistance to the gallant Kurdish people,” he wrote on Twitter.

Russia said it planned to push for dialogue between the Syrian and Turkish governments following the incursion.

Italy condemned the offensive as “unacceptable”, saying military action in the past always led to terrorism.

“The intervention risks greater humanitarian suffering and undermines the focus on countering Daesh (IS),” said British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab.

(Additional reporting by Tom Perry in Beirut and Reuters correspondents in the region; Writing by William Maclean; Editing by Cameron-Moore and Mike Collett-White)

Turkey plans to return one million Syrians, warns of new migrant wave in Europe

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan speaks during a meeting of his ruling AK Party in Ankara, Turkey, September 5, 2019. Murat Kula/Presidential Press Office/Handout via REUTERS

By Nevzat Devranoglu and Tuvan Gumrukcu

ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkey plans to resettle 1 million refugees in northern Syria and may reopen the route for migrants into Europe if it does not receive adequate international support for the plan, President Tayyip Erdogan said on Thursday.

Turkey, which hosts 3.6 million Syrian refugees, controls parts of north Syria where it says 350,000 Syrians have already returned. It is setting up a “safe zone” with the United States in the northeast where Erdogan said many more could be moved.

“Our goal is for at least one million of our Syrian brothers to return to the safe zone we will form along our 450 km border,” Erdogan said in a speech in Ankara.

The comments come as Turkey mounts pressure on Washington for further concessions on the depth and oversight of the planned safe zone in the northeast, and as it comes under increasing pressure in Syria’s northwest Idlib region where a Russian-backed government offensive has pressed north.

Only a small minority of Syrians in Turkey are from the northern strip roughly proposed for re-settlement, according to Turkish government data.

“We are saying we should form such a safe zone that we, as Turkey, can build towns here in lieu of the tent cities here. Let’s carry them to the safe zones there,” Erdogan said

“Give us logistical support and we can go build housing at 30 km (20 miles) depth in northern Syria. This way, we can provide them with humanitarian living conditions.”

“This either happens or otherwise we will have to open the gates,” Erdogan said. “Either you will provide support, or excuse us, but we are not going to carry this weight alone. We have not been able to get help from the international community, namely the European Union.”

RENEWED CONFLICT

Under a deal agreed between the EU and Turkey in March 2016, Ankara agreed to stem the flow of migrants into Europe in return for billions of euros in aid.

However, the number of migrant arrivals in neighboring Greece spiked last month. A week ago, more than a dozen migrant boats carrying 600 people arrived, the first simultaneous arrival of its kind in three years.

Last month, Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said only 17% of refugees in Turkey hail from northeast regions controlled by the U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish YPG militia, which Ankara considers a terrorist group. Of that region, the proposed safe zone would cover only a fraction.

Last week, senior Syrian Kurdish official Badran Jia Kurd said it is necessary to resettle refugees in their home towns. “Settling hundreds of thousands of Syrians, who are from outside our areas, here would be unacceptable,” he said of the northeast.

In Idlib, where Turkey has troops and where Ankara in 2017 agreed with Moscow and Tehran to reduce fighting, months of renewed conflict intensified in recent weeks and raised prospects of another wave of refugees at Turkey’s borders.

After a truce collapsed in early August, the Russian-backed Syrian army has gained significant ground against rebel forces, some of whom are backed by Turkey.

Nicholas Danforth, Istanbul-based senior visiting fellow at the German Marshall Fund, said warning about refugees in the context of the safe zone allows Erdogan to pressure both Europe and the United States at once.

“What seems clear is that it would be impossible to settle that many refugees in any zone achieved through negotiations with the United States and the YPG,” he said.

“This looks like an attempt to build pressure for more U.S. concessions on the safe zone, where some refugees could then be resettled for purposes of domestic (Turkish) public relations.”

(Additional reporting by Ece Toksabay in Ankara and Ellen Francis in Beirut; Writing by Dominic Evans; Editing by Jonathan Spicer, William Maclean)

With Syria ‘safe zone’ plan, Turkey faces diplomatic balancing act

A general view shows a damaged street with sandbags used as barriers in Aleppo's Saif al-Dawla district, Syria

By Orhan Coskun and Ercan Gurses

ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkey will have to strike a balance between the conflicting goals of Russia and the United States if it is to achieve its ambition of a “safe zone” in northern Syria and build on an incursion which gave it control of a thin strip of the border.

Turkey has for several years called for world powers to help create a zone to protect civilians in its war-torn southern neighbor, with the dual aim of clearing its border of Islamic State and Kurdish militia fighters and of stemming a wave of migration that has caused tensions with Europe.

Western allies have so far balked at the idea, saying it would require a significant ground force and planes to patrol a “no-fly zone”, a major commitment in such a crowded and messy battlefield. Russia, which backs Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, has meanwhile argued in the past that any foreign incursion would be illegal.

But Turkey’s offensive into northern Syria, launched with its Syrian rebel allies two weeks ago, has created what officials in Ankara are already calling a “de facto safe zone”, driving Islamic State militants from the last 90-km (55-mile) strip of border territory they still controlled.

Turkey now wants international support for a deeper operation to take control of a rectangle of territory stretching about 40 km into Syria, a buffer between two Kurdish-held cantons to the east and west and against Islamic State to the south.

“The first phase of the plan has been achieved. Turkey no longer has borders with Islamic State. But this area is still very thin and vulnerable to attacks from the other side,” said a senior Turkish official, speaking on condition of anonymity so as to discuss the strategy more freely.

“What will be done now will depend on coordination with coalition powers and the support they will provide,” he said, adding an improvement in relations with Russia had “eased Turkey’s hand” operationally.

The Turkish-backed rebels, mainly Syrian Arabs and Turkmen fighting under the banner of the Free Syrian Army, took charge of the frontier between the towns of Azaz and Jarablus on Sunday after seizing 20 villages from the ultra-hardline Islamists.

Ahmed Osman, commander of the Sultan Murad rebel group, one of the Turkish-backed forces, told Reuters he would like to see a permanent “safe zone” but that this would require an agreement between Turkey, the United States and Russia.

CONFLICTING INTERESTS

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, his hand strengthened by Turkey’s incursion, said on Monday he had raised the issue of a “safe zone” again with both Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Barack Obama at the G20 summit in China.

Neither commented directly on the Turkish proposal, though both said they wanted to build cooperation in fighting terrorism in Syria. Erdogan’s spokesman said there were neither objections nor clear signs of support in the meetings.

A second senior Turkish official acknowledged both Washington and Russia “had their hesitations” but that a “de facto safe zone” had now become a reality on the ground and that their support, particularly in establishing a no-fly zone, was crucial.

Metin Gurcan, a former major in the Turkish military and an analyst for the Al Monitor online journal, said Washington and Moscow’s divergent agendas in Syria raised serious questions about the viability of the Turkish plans.

“We are talking about two superpowers with great stakes in Syria. They have contradicting strategic interests about the end goal in Syria,” he said.

More than five years of civil war have cut Syria into a patchwork of territories held by the government and an often competing array of armed factions, including Kurdish militia fighters, a loose coalition of rebels groups, and Islamic State.

The priority for Washington, which backs rebel factions fighting Assad in the civil war, is destroying Islamic State and it has been at odds with Turkey over the role of the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia. The United States has backed the Kurdish fighters against the jihadists, but Turkey sees them as a hostile force linked to Kurdish militants on its own soil.

The two NATO allies have reached an uneasy agreement under which YPG fighters are meant to remain east of the Euphrates river, just outside Turkey’s proposed buffer zone, although Ankara has said it has yet to verify that they are doing so.

Turkey meanwhile appears to be navigating Russian concerns more smoothly since restoring relations with Moscow in August, nine months after ties were broken when it shot down a Russian fighter jet near the Syrian border.

Erdogan’s spokesman said on Tuesday that Russia had voiced full support for Turkey’s operation to clear the border of Islamic State. For its part, Turkey has been less insistent on Assad’s immediate exit.

“They appear to be lessening their demands for the ouster of Assad in deference to their new relationship with Russia,” said James Stavridis, former NATO supreme commander and dean at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.

‘ARMAGEDDON’

Aside from the diplomatic challenges, a push deeper into Syria by the Turkish-backed Arab and Turkmen rebels poses significant military risks.

The Turkish-backed forces have been advancing toward Manbij, a city around 30 km south of Jarablus that was captured last month from Islamic State by a U.S.-backed coalition that includes the YPG. The Kurdish fighters are since supposed to have pulled back east of the Euphrates.

“We know there are de facto YPG factions still there. If they don’t retreat, Turkey will be determined and return Manbij to its owners,” said Yasin Aktay, a spokesman for Turkey’s ruling AK Party, referring to Arab and Turkmen communities who lived there before civil war broke out in 2011.

The Islamic State-held town of Al-Bab, west of Manbij, is another a key strategic target for both Turkish-backed and Kurdish forces where Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, one of Islamic State’s most prominent leaders, is thought to have been killed in a U.S. air strike last week.

To its northwest is the village of Dabiq – the site, according to Islamic prophecy, of a final battle between Muslims and infidels, an event in Islamic State propaganda that will herald the apocalypse.

“The fight for the Turkish-backed rebels is going to get tougher as they proceed south,” said a former Turkish soldier and security analyst Abdullah Agar. “According to Islamic State’s beliefs, they will face Armageddon here.”

(Additional reporting by Tom Perry in Beirut, Tulay Karadeniz in Ankara and Humeyra Pamuk, Edmund Blair and Akin Aytekin in Istanbul; Writing by Nick Tattersall; Editing by Pravin Char)