October 20, 2019-The United States and Turkey reached an agreement on Syrian operations late last week after Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an demanded that “all the terrorists” lay down their arms and “get out of the safe zone that we have designated.”
As a result of the agreement, Kurdish fighters, known as the People’s Protection Units (YPG), and their families are to evacuate from a designated zone along the Syrian-Turkish border. If they do not evacuate, Turkey has promised to relaunch its military offensive.
While U.S. President Donald Trump called it a “ceasefire,” others referred to the pause in fighting as a period of mass evacuation. It is not immediately clear if YPG fighters are leaving the area, but tens of thousands of civilians are fleeing to Iraq for safety.
‘Safe’ for Whom?
The 13-point agreement spells out that Turkey would pause its military operations for 120 hours against the Kurdish fighters in northern Syria. In exchange, the U.S. government would facilitate the withdraw of Kurdish fighters from a Turkish-controlled safe zone and lift its limited sanctions from October 14 against Turkish ministries and officials.
Speaking in a central Turkish province on Saturday, Erdo?an vowed to continue fighting against any remaining YPG militia at the end of the 120-hour pause period. “We will start where we left off and crush the heads of terrorists.”
On Tuesday, Erdo?an is scheduled to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Sochi, Russia.
Tens of Thousands Flee
According to the Associated Press, tens of thousands of civilians have been forced to flee amid Turkey’s incursion into the border area.
The UN High Commissioner Refugees in Syria says that 70,000 children have been forced to evacuate northeast Syria. (It’s not clear if that is just in the past two weeks.)
What Had the U.S. Promised the Kurds?
The U.S. decision to pull out of Syria has drawn widespread criticism. In the U.S. Congress, both Republicans and Democrats complained that the country is abandoning Kurdish fighters who helped defeat Daesh (ISIS) and is leaving a vacuum that Russia and Iran will fill.
Military analysts put it more bluntly.
“It’s a strategic disaster,” said Brett McGurk, former special presidential envoy for the global coalition to counter ISIL (Daesh) in Syria. “It’s not a ceasefire. It’s a demand to evacuate towns besieged by Turkish-backed extremists, the same tactic used by [Syrian President Bashar Hafez al] Assad.”
The U.S. forces had made a deal with YPG Kurdish fighters in Syria along the Turkish border. It was a decision that NATO ally Turkey didn’t like, but it would help defeat Daesh (ISIS) in Syria.
“Four years ago, when we had no real solutions, no real plan to take on the caliphate that ISIS had declared in northeastern Syria, we were introduced to a group called the YPG,” U.S. Gen. Raymond Thomas, a commander of U.S. Special Operations, said on Sunday in an interview with CBS Face the Nation. “They are a group of Kurdish Syrians who were barely surviving in the area of Kobani up on the border with Turkey. And all they asked for at that time was our close air support.”
Thomas said that the promise he and U.S. commander McGurk made to the YPG fighters was that “they would be part of the future of Syria, whatever that entailed.” Thomas added that, “Truthfully we didn’t have a solid plan for how it would end. But they believed that they would be part of the fabric of the future of Syria.”
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