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Ahead of talks with Trump, Erdogan says United States not fulfilling Syria deal

Reuters
Istanbul, TurkeyUpdated: Nov 07, 2019, 02:39 PM IST
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File photo. Photograph:(AFP)

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Erdogan said he will raise the issue when he meets US President Donald Trump next week.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Thursday the United States was not fulfilling its pledge to remove a Kurdish militia from a Syrian border region and he will raise the issue when he meets President Donald Trump next week.

A month ago, Turkey launched a cross-border offensive with Syrian rebels against Kurdish YPG fighters and after seizing control of a 120 km swathe of territory reached a deal with the United States to keep them out of that area.

Erdogan is set to discuss the implementation of the agreement with Trump in Washington on November 13 after confirming that the visit would go ahead following a phone call between the leaders overnight.

"While we hold these talks, those who promised us that the YPG...would withdraw from here within 120 hours have not achieved this," he told a news conference, referring to a deadline set in last month's agreement.

Turkish officials had previously said Erdogan might call off the US visit in protest at US.House of Representatives' votes to recognise mass killings of Armenians a century ago as genocide and to seek sanctions on Turkey.

After the deal with Washington, Ankara also reached an agreement with Moscow under which the YPG was to withdraw to a depth of 30 km along the entirety of the northeastern Syrian border with Turkey.

But Erdogan said this deal had also not been fulfilled, with YPG fighters still in the border strip, adding that he would hold talks with Putin soon on the issue.

Clashes in Syria

Speaking to reporters before leaving on a visit to Hungary, Erdogan said clashes in Syria were continuing, with 11 fighters from the Turkey-backed rebel Syrian National Army (SNA) killed on Thursday.

"These terrorists are attacking the SNA, and the SNA is retaliating in kind. There are 11 martyrs from the SNA this morning. Many more were killed on the other side," he said.

Under the two bilateral deals, Ankara stopped its offensive in return for the withdrawal of the YPG fighters. Turkish and Russian soldiers have so far held two joint patrols near the border to monitor implementation of their agreement.

Ankara considers the YPG a terrorist group because of its ties to militants who have fought an insurgency in southeast Turkey since 1984. US support for the YPG, which was a main ally in the fight against Islamic State, has infuriated Turkey.

Ankara began its offensive against the YPG after Trump announced an abrupt withdrawal of 1,000 US troops from northern Syria in early October. The US president has since said that some troops will continue to operate there.

Late on Wednesday, the commander of the YPG-led Syrian Democratic Forces said the group was resuming work with the US-led coalition against Islamic State in Syria.

"As a result of series of meetings with Coalition leaders, #SDF is resuming its joint programme of work with the Coalition to combat #ISIS and securing the infrastructure of NE #Syria," Mazloum Kobani wrote on Twitter.

Turkish sources say Trump and Erdogan have a strong bond despite anger in Congress over Turkey's Syria offensive and its purchase of Russian air defences, and despite what Ankara sees as the US president's own erratic pronouncements.

Those personal ties could prove crucial, given NATO member Turkey's purchase of Moscow's S-400 missile defence system, which under US law should trigger sanctions.

Turkey has already been suspended from the F-35 fighter jet programme in which it was both joint producer and customer, and the offensive it launched against Kurdish forces in northeast Syria on October 9 set the stage for further US retaliation.