Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan reached a new deal for creation of a safe zone in northern Syria on Tuesday after a five hour meeting in Sochi.
Beginning at 12 noon on October 23, all members of the YPG are to take their guns and withdraw beyond the 30-kilometer line from the Turkish border with northern Syria. Their fortifications are to be destroyed.
Also at that time, Turkish and Russian troops will simultaneously patrol the 10-kilometer zone east and west of the operation zone “to prevent the militants’ infiltration to the safe zone,” according to the Turkish Hurriyet Daily News.
Erdogan said that during Ankara’s “Operation Peace Spring” in northern Syria, Turkish forces “neutralized” 775 YPG fighters. In addition, seven Turkish soldiers, 79 Turkey-backed Syrian National Army (SNA) members and 20 civilians were killed as well.
The US and Turkey have also agreed on a 20-mile (32-kilometer) “safe zone” in northern Syria along the Turkish border, where Ankara wants to relocate more than three million Syrian refugees currently residing north of the border.