See On the Ground News's other Tweets
What Turkey did get was a pledge of a sort of demilitarized zone along the 275-mile stretch, from which YPG fighters would pull back with their weapons over the next week or so. But the Kurdish villagers apparently won't have to leave, and the YPG will be replaced by Syrian Arab Army troops and Russian gendarmes. So the planned ethnic cleansing has been reduced to about one fifth of what Erdogan had in mind.
The Russo-Turkish agreement does make Syria and Russia implicitly responsible for ensuring that no YPG fighters cross to Turkey to support terrorist operations by radical Turkish Kurds of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). The Turkish press maintains that this happens all the time, but I haven't seen any credible proof of it. I think when the US was embedded with the YPG, they would have noticed such terrorist strikes by their guys. In my view, Ankara is just paranoid about Kurds and has unfairly lumped the Syrian-Kurdish YPG with the Turkish-Kurdish PKK. The latter have certainly been guilty of terrorism, but the former lost 10,000 men fighting ISIL terrorists, something Turkey was unwilling to step up and do.
This Russo-Turkish deal emphasizes that Russia is the real hegemon in Syria, and Turkey is a bit player that is being allowed to keep a small part of what they wanted on sufferance.
The Turkish ministry of defense announced that its military operations in (i.e. invasion of) Syria is over with.
My guess is that over time, Russia will force Turkey entirely back out.
Bonus Video:
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
1
1
