Turkey starts joint patrols with US forces in Manbij
Russia says militants trying to wreck deal over Syria’s Idlib
ISTANBUL/MANBIJ, Syria (Reuters) – Turkish and US forces began joint patrols on Thursday in the Manbij region of northern Syria, which has been a source of friction between Ankara and Washington in recent years.
Turkey’s Defense Minister Hulusi Akar confirmed the start of the patrols in Manbij, about 30 km (19 miles) from the Turkish border.
The two NATO allies had been at odds over the area after Kurdish forces took part of it in a US-backed offensive that drove Islamic State out of Manbij City in 2016.
Turkish and US forces have been carrying out coordinated but independent patrols near Manbij since June.
A Reuters witness saw a convoy of six military vehicles, some flying the US flag and others flying the Turkish flag, advancing on Thursday about 20 km. from Manbij city.
Turkey, which views the dominant Syrian Kurdish groups as a threat to its national security, had threatened military action against Manbij earlier this year. Then in June, it agreed to a road map with the United States under which the two countries would jointly maintain security and stability there.
Shortly afterwards, the Kurdish YPG militia announced the withdrawal of its military advisers from the city.
The patrols are taking place along the dividing line between territory controlled by the Manbij Military Council, which is allied to the YPG-dominated and US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, and a Turkish-controlled area in northern Syria.
The Turkish Defense Ministry said the joint patrols began at 15:53 local time on Thursday. “Patrols will continue until targets laid out on the Manbij road map have been reached,” the statement said.
According to Defense Minister Hulusi Akar, a total of 260,000 Syrian nationals have returned to a swathe of land in northern Syria where Turkey carried out a cross-border operation dubbed “Euphrates Shield.”
Turkey launched Euphrates Shield in 2016 to drive away Islamic State militants and the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia from its border with Syria. Ankara regards the US-backed YPG as a terrorist organization. The operation ended in 2017.
Turkey hosts more than 3.5 million Syrian refugees who fled the conflict in their homeland. Some Turks view them as an economic burden and a threat to jobs.
“As a result of the infrastructure work and the security and stability in the region provided by the Turkish Armed Forces, around 260,000 Syrian nationals have returned to the Euphrates Shield Operation area,” Akar said in a speech.
Akar also said Turkey’s operations in northern Iraq would continue until what he described as the terrorist threat to Turkish territory had ended. He was speaking after a week of air strikes in the area that have targeted the bases of Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militants.
ON TUESDAY, the Turkish military killed seven Kurdish militants in air strikes over northern Iraq as they were preparing to launch an attack on regions were Turkish bases are located, it said in a statement on Twitter.
Meanwhile Thursday, Russia accused rebels in Syria’s Idlib Province of trying to wreck a Russian-Turkish initiative to create a demilitarized zone in the insurgent-held region, the Interfax News Agency reported.
Idlib is held by an array of rebel groups, the most powerful of which is Tahrir al-Sham. An amalgamation of Islamist groups, it is dominated by the former Nusra Front, an al Qaeda affiliate until 2016.
“There are still Nusra militants in Idlib who are not stopping their attempts to wreck the implementation of the memorandum that was agreed between Russia and Turkey,” Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for the foreign ministry, was cited as saying.
Interfax quoted Zakharova as telling a news briefing in Moscow that the militants were continuing to shell Syrian government forces in the south of the province and to the northwest of Hama.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has reported regular exchanges of shelling since the September deal, which have caused a few deaths in both rebel and opposition-held sides of the front line. Shelling continued on Thursday.
The agreement forged in September between Russia, Syrian President Bashar Assad’s most powerful ally, and Turkey, which backs the rebels, staved off a major government offensive into the opposition-held region in northwestern Syria.
Turkey has said that the deal is continuing according to plan and rejected accusations by Damascus that Turkey appeared unwilling to implement the deal.
The UN says around 3 million people live in rebel-held Idlib and adjacent areas and has warned that a battle to restore Assad’s control over the zone could be the worst of the seven-year-old war.