US Vice President Mike Pence announced the ceasefire in a press conference in Ankara late on Thursday after hours of talks with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Under the 13-point agreement, which does not use the word ceasefire, states, “The Turkish side will pause Operation Peace Spring in order to allow the withdrawal of YPG from the safe zone within 120 hours. Operation Peace Spring will be halted upon completion of this withdrawal.”
The YPG, the Kurdish People’s Protection Units, are the backbone of the SDF and have been key international partners in the war against the Islamic State (ISIS) in Syria. Turkey considers the YPG a terrorist group.
In addition to withdrawing, the YPG will handover heavy weapons and disable their military fortifications within the “safe zone” that Ankara wants to establish to push the Kurdish forces away from the border and make space to resettle as many as two million Syrian refugees now sheltering in Turkey.
The text does not define the geographic limits of the ceasefire.
Kurdish officials, who did not participate in the Ankara talks but were consulted by the Americans, said the ceasefire and safe zone region only covers the areas now seeing conflict: around Sari Kani (Ras al-Ain) and Gire Spi (Tal Abyad), two towns on the border.
“Based on the request and approval of the Syrian Democratic Forces, with United States mediation represented by Vice President Mr. Mike Pence, today, an agreement for an immediate ceasefire between the Syrian Democratic Forces and the Turkish state along the front lines extending from Ras al-Ain/Sari Kani from the east to Tel Abyad city in the west was reached,” read a statement from the SDF’s general command.
Erdogan told reporters in Istanbul on Friday that the agreement is not limited to a YPG withdrawal from Ras al-Ain and Tal Abyad. He said they discussed a 32 kilometre deep and 440 kilometre long safe zone in talks with the Americans.
“Currently, the areas between Tal Abyad and Ras al-Ain are already cleared,” he said, adding they will not stop there, but “the process will continue with determination” along the border.
According to James Jeffrey, US special representative for Syria who was present in the Ankara talks, the ceasefire covers a very limited area.
“[W]e have this pause in the Turkish operations for five days as the SDF withdraws from those areas where the Turks are,” he told journalists travelling with him to Israel on Thursday.
He defined the ceasefire zone as the area where Turkey has gained control around the two border towns and down to the M4 highway. Jeffrey said the US assessed the SDF could not hold onto these territories and so concluded that a ceasefire would be the better option to save lives and “get some kind of control over this chaotic situation.”
“At the end of that five days, if the SDF has withdrawn, the Turks will cease all operations in northeast Syria,” said Jeffrey, effectively ending Turkey’s aspirations to gain more territory.
As for regions outside of this limited ceasefire zone, Jeffrey said talks are ongoing between Turkey, Russia, and Damascus. Erdogan is due to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Sochi on October 22.
The SDF said last night that they ceased fire at 10pm in accordance with the truce and accused the Turkish side of violating the deal.
US President Donald Trump tweeted Friday evening that he spoke with Erdogan and was reassured that minor violations of the truce were quickly dealt with. “He very much wants the ceasefire, or pause, to work. Likewise, the Kurds want it, and the ultimate solution, to happen… There is good will on both sides,” he said.
The deal was slammed by European Union Council President Donald Tusk. “The so-called ceasefire is not what we expected. In fact, it’s not a ceasefire, it’s a demand of capitulation of the Kurds,” he told journalists in Brussels.
Syrian Kurds appealed for international monitors to guarantee the ceasefire, but US Defense Secretary Mark Esper ruled out American forces playing peacekeeper. “No US ground forces will participate in the enforcement of this safe zone,” he told Pentagon reporters on Friday, adding that the US will carry out aerial reconnaissance.
The first winner in the chaos appears to be the Islamic State (ISIS). Militants have stepped up attacks against the SDF in Deir ez-Zor and Raqqa, taking advantage of the Kurdish shift of focus to the northern border.
In the latest edition of the group’s al-Naba magazine, released on Thursday, ISIS gleefully crowed about the end of the Kurdish force since it was "betrayed by the Crusaders," referring to the Americans.
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