Turkey to ask for Russia’s help in dispute over Syria border area
ISTANBUL — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan wants Syrian government forces to move out of areas near the Turkish border so he can resettle up to 2 million refugees there, his spokesman said Saturday. The request will top Mr. Erdogan’s talks next week with Syria’s ally, Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Arrangements along the Syria-Turkey border were thrown into disarray after the U.S. pulled its troops out of the area, opening the door to Turkey’s invasion aiming to drive out Kurdish-led fighters it considers terrorists.
Abandoned by their American allies, the Kurds — with Russia’s mediation — invited Damascus to send troops into northeastern Syria as protection from Turkish forces. That has complicated Turkey’s plan to create a “safe zone” along the border, where it can resettle Syrian refugees now in Turkey. Most of those refugees fled Syria’s government.
Mr. Erdogan’s spokesman, Ibrahim Kalin, said Ankara does not want either Syrian forces or Kurdish fighters in the border area because refugees would not go back to areas under their control.
Turkey has said it wants to oversee that area.
“This is one of the topics that we will discuss with the Russians, because, again, we are not going to force any refugees to go to anywhere they don’t want to go,” Mr. Kalin 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 controlled since 2017.
Under an agreement made by the U.S. and Turkey on Thursday, a five-day cease-fire has been in place. Turkey expects the Kurdish fighters to pull back from a border area.
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 19 miles south of the border.
Redur Khalil, a senior Syrian Democratic Forces official, said 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.
Mr. Khalil said Kurdish-led fighters would pull back from a 75-mile stretch along the border from Ras al-Ayn to Tal Abyad, moving past the international highway.
“We are only committed to the U.S. version, not the Turkish one,” he 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.
Mr. Erdogan has said the Kurds must withdraw from a far larger length of the border from the Euphrates River to the Iraqi border — more than 260 miles — or else the Turkish offensive will resume Tuesday.
But U.S. officials say the agreement pertains to the smaller section between the two towns. Mr. Kalin confirmed that is the area affected by the pause in fighting, but said Turkey still wants the larger zone.
Two days into the ceasefire, the border town of Ras al-Ayn has been the sticking point in moving forward.
A Kurdish official 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.
Turkish officials denied violating the cease-fire or impeding the fighters’ withdrawal, blaming the continued violence on the Kurds.