Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin the need to “cleanse” northern Syria of Kurdish forces in a telephone interview on Sunday.
“It is important and a priority to clear along the border of terrorists, at least 30 km deep, in accordance with the Sochi 2019 memorandum”, affirmed Recep Tayyip Erdogan, referring to the Kurdish fighters of the People’s Protection Units (YPG) in northern Syria, according to a statement from the Turkish presidency.
A new emerging conflict?
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 the creation of a 30 km “safe zone” to protect Turkey from attacks that could come from Syrian territory. An agreement with similar terms had been separately concluded between Ankara and Washington in 2019.
Moscow and Washington opposed to Turkish maneuvers
Turkey criticizes Russia, as well as the United States, for not respecting these agreements and for having failed to remove the YPG from the Turkish border. Turkey launched on November 20 a series of air raids in northeastern Syria on positions of Kurdish fighters, whom it describes as “terrorists”.
A few hundred soldiers from the international coalition are deployed in this region in the hands of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF, dominated by the Kurds), spearheading the fight against the jihadist group Islamic State (IS) driven from its strongholds in Syria in 2019.
Both Moscow and Washington have stated their opposition to a possible Turkish ground incursion into northern Syria.