Syrian Kurdish SDF officials announced on Sunday that they have agreed
to fully withdraw from the 30 km buffer zone along the Turkish border,
and will be withdrawing under the terms of the Russia-Turkey deal.
The SDF statement said that they are in the process of deploying
already, and urged Russia to help them establish a “constructive
dialogue” between the Kurds and the Assad government of Syria.
The SDF had claimed to withdraw under the US ceasefire, which ended a
week ago. When that fell apart, Turkey was set to renew its offensive
before Russia made a deal promising to get the rest of the Kurds out.
That ceasefire is set to end on Tuesday night.
Turkey’s President Erdogan has suggested that the Kurdish “terrorists”
are not out of the area yet, saying Turkey is advancing its
establishment of a safe zone, and is prepared to “clean” the zone of
Kurds if Russia misses the deadline.
Syrian Kurds Say They’ll Leave Border Under Russia Deal
Erdogan threatens to 'clean' border area of Kurdish terrorists if deadline missed
Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.
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