Turkey Plans Presence Across Northeast Syria, Erdogan Says

Less than 24 hours after he agreed the five-day truce to allow Kurdish forces time to pull back from Turkey’s crossborder assault, Erdogan underlined Ankara’s ambition to establish a presence along 300 miles of territory inside Syria.

On the border itself shelling could be heard near the Syrian town of Ras al Ain on Friday morning despite Thursday’s deal, and a spokesman for the Kurdish-led forces said Turkey was violating the ceasefire, hitting civilian targets in the town.

But Reuters journalists at the border said the bombardment subsided around mid-morning and a US official said most of the fighting had stopped, although it would “take time for things to completely quiet down”.

US President Donald Trump said on Friday he had spoken with Erdogan who told him there had been some “minor” sniper and mortar fire in northeastern Syria despite the truce, but that it had been quickly eliminated.

“He very much wants the ceasefire, or pause, to work,” Trump said in a post on Twitter. “Likewise, the Kurds want it, and the ultimate solution, to happen.”

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs described the situation as “reportedly calm in most areas, with the exception of Ras al-Ain, where shelling and gunfire continued to be reported earlier today,” UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.

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

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

Turkey’s offensive created a new humanitarian crisis in Syria with 200,000 civilians taking flight, according to Red Cross estimates. It also prompted a security alert over thousands of Islamic State fighters held in Kurdish jails.

Trump has praised the deal with NATO-ally Turkey as one that would save lives. Turkey cast it as a victory in its campaign to control territory more than 30 km (around 20 miles) deep into Syria and drive out Kurdish fighters from the YPG, the SDF’s main Kurdish component. Ankara considers the YPG a terrorist group because of its links to Kurdish insurgents in southeast Turkey.

“As of now, the 120-hour period is on. In this 120-hour period, the terrorist organization, the YPG, will leave the area we identified as a safe zone,” Erdogan told reporters after Friday prayers in Istanbul. The safe zone would be 32 km deep, and run “440 km from the very west to the east”, he said.

But the US special envoy for Syria, James Jeffrey, said the accord covered a smaller area where Turkish forces and their Syrian rebel allies were fighting, between the two border towns of Ras al Ain and Tel Abyad, just 120 km away.

Speaking to journalists later on Friday, Erdogan said Turkey plans to set up 12 observation posts in northeast Syria. A map of the region showed the planned posts stretching from the Iraq border in the east to the Euphrates river 300 miles to the west.