Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin the need to “cleanse” northern Syria of Kurdish forces in a phone interview on Sunday.
“It is important and a priority to clean up along the border of terrorists, at least 30 km deep, according to the Sochi memorandum in 2019,” Recep Tayyip Erdogan said, referring to the Kurdish fighters from the People’s Protection Units. (YPG) in northern Syria, according to a statement from the Turkish presidency.
According to the Kremlin, the two leaders discussed “the problem” of resolving the conflict in Syria on the basis of “fulfilment of the conditions” of the 2019 Russian-Turkish agreement.
“The defense and foreign policy bodies of the two countries will continue close contacts in this regard,” the Russian presidency said in a statement.
Turkey accuses Syria of being behind the Istanbul attack
The Turkish head of state has been threatening since November to launch a ground military operation in northern Syria to repel YPG fighters whom Ankara accuses of being behind an attack that killed six people in Istanbul on November 13. Kurdish forces have denied any involvement.
In 2019, an agreement between Ankara and Moscow ended another Turkish offensive, promising to create a 30 km “safe zone” to protect Turkey from attacks that could come from Syrian territory.
Ankara and Washington separately signed an agreement with similar terms in 2019. Turkey accuses Russia, as well as the United States, of not respecting these agreements and of not having removed the YPG from the Turkish border.
Series of Turkish raids in Syria
On November 20, Ankara launched a series of airstrikes in north-eastern Syria targeting positions of Kurdish fighters, whom it describes as “terrorists”.
A few hundred soldiers of the international coalition are deployed in this region in the hands of the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), leading the fight against the jihadist group Islamic State (IS) expelled from its strongholds in Syria in 2019.
Both Moscow and Washington have stated their opposition to a possible Turkish ground incursion into northern Syria.
Source: BFM TV
