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Syria
A Turkish military vehicle is accompanied on patrol by a Russian air force helicopter near Darbasiyah, northern Syria, April 22, 2020. Photo: Delil Souleiman / AFP
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Units of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) are not operating in areas of northern Syria under Turkish occupation, contrary to Ankara’s claims, the Kurdish-led force said Monday.
The Turkish army and its Syrian proxies launched Operation Peace Spring in October 2019 against the SDF in northern Syria, claiming the force posed a threat to Turkish national security.
Ankara planned to establish a so-called safe zone along the Syrian side of the Turkey-Syria border to settle millions of Syrian refugees who had fled to Turkey over the course of Syria’s decade-old civil war.
Turkish forces seized control of Sari Kani (Ras Al-Ain) and Gire Spi (Tal Abyad), but the operation was suspended following international outcry and the signing of two Turkish agreements with the US and Russia.
Under the agreements, the SDF was compelled to withdraw from the border region. Russia confirmed the SDF had complied with the withdrawal, but Turkey has repeatedly said it is unconvinced.
Turkish media and military commanders have since reported several “infiltration attempts” in the withdrawal zone by alleged members of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) – an armed group which forms the backbone of the SDF.
On Saturday, Turkey’s defense ministry claimed Turkish troops had killed 13 YPG fighters and injured seven others after they “tried to infiltrate” Sari Kani.
Turkey’s state-owned Anadolu news agency reported on Monday that a “civilian” has told its reporter the YPG had blackmailed him to take a car bomb to Gire Spi or else they would harm his family.
Identified by the initials F.U., the “civilian” said he surrendered to Turkish forces rather than deliver the explosives.
“Recently, several fabricated news stories and statements by a number of official accounts of the Turkish Ministry of Defense appeared on the internet, including the official account of the Turkish National Security Council, which publishes fake news and information about the military situation and developments in the occupied areas of the Ras Al-Ain, Tal Abyad, and the Tal Rifaat region,” SDF spokesman Kino Gabriel said in a statement Monday.
The allegations are “unfounded and a miserable attempt to distort the reality of what is happening on the ground in terms of the full commitment of our forces to their obligations towards the agreements signed in this regard, and the absence of any military presence of our forces in the aforementioned areas,” he added.
The SDF spokesman called on Ankara “to respect the agreements signed with our partners in the region.”
The SDF itself was not a signatory of the agreements, but nevertheless accepted the terms.
The ceasefire agreements have been broken several by Turkey’s Syrian proxy groups. The Turkish army has also clashed with Syrian regime forces.
Clashes have since dropped dramatically as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
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