Turkey wants Syrian forces to leave border areas, aide says

Ithey don’t want to go,” he said. “We want to create conditions that will be suitable for them to return where they will feel safe.”

Turkey has taken in about 3.6 million Syrians fleeing the conflict in their homeland but now wants most of them to return. So far, very few have returned to an enclave Turkey already took over and has controlled since 2017.

Under an agreement made by the U.S. and Turkey Thursday, a fiveday cease-fire has been in place. Turkey expects the Kurdish fighters to pull back from a border ar ea. A senior Syrian Kurdish official acknowledged for the first time that the Kurdish-led forces agreed to the pullback, stating that his forces will move 30-kilometer (19 miles) south of the border.

Redur Khalil, a senior Syrian Democratic Forces official, told the AP that the withdrawal will take place once Turkey allows the Kurdish-led force to evacuate its fighters and civilians from Ras al-Ayn, a border town under siege by Turkish-backed forces. He said that Kurdish-led force was preparing plans to conduct that evacuation on Sunday, if there are no further delays.

Khalil said Kurdish-led fighters would pull back from a 120-kilometer (75-mile) stretch along the border from Ras alAyn to Tal Abyad, moving past the international hi ghw ay.

“We are only committed to the U.S. version not the Turkish one,” Khalil said.

A previous agreement between the U.S. and Turkey over a “safe zone” along the Syria-Turkish border floundered over the diverging definitions of the area.

Erdogan has said the Kurdish fighters must withdraw from a far larger length of the border from the Euphrates River to the Iraqi border — more than 440 kilometers (260 miles) — or else the Turkish offensive will resume on Tuesday.

But U.S. officials say the agreement pertains to the smaller section between the two towns.

Kalin confirmed that is the area affected by the pause in fighting, but said Turkey still wants the larger zone.

Two days into the cease-fire, the border town of Ras al-Ayn has been the sticking point in moving forward.

“We hope that as of tonight or tomorrow, they will stick to this agreement and leave the area,” Kalin said.

The Kurdish official meanwhile said his force had negotiated with the Americans the details of its pull-back from the border, starting with the Ras al-Ayn evacuation. But he said the evacuation stalled for 48 hours because Turkish-backed forces continued their siege of the town.

A partial evacuation took place Saturday. Medical convoys were let into part of the town still in Kurdish hands, evacuating 30 wounded and four bodies from a hospital. Khalil said the plan to complete the evacuation from Ras alAyn is now set for Sunday.

- AP