Turkey accuses Russia and the US of not withdrawing Kurdish forces from Syria

Russia and the United States have not fulfilled their obligations to withdraw Kurdish forces from a number of areas in Syria, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said.

“During my visit to the US, we will talk about Syria. Because they [США] continue to support the PKK and YPG. For us, this is a threat. Both the United States and Russia did not fulfill the word given to us,” said Cavusoglu, adding that the agreements of 2019 were not fulfilled (quote according to TASS).

In November 2022, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that Ankara carried out an air operation in Syria and Iraq because of the refusal of the Russian side to fulfill promises to withdraw Kurdish formations from the border of the republic. The Turkish leader referred to the Sochi agreement, concluded in 2019 between Moscow and Ankara, on joint actions to resolve the situation in the northeast of the Arab Republic.

In response, Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that there are “certain nuances” regarding the situation in Syria in relations between Moscow and Ankara, which, among other things, relate to the one whose obligations were not fulfilled under the memorandum agreed in Sochi.

In 2019, Russia and Turkey agreed on the withdrawal of Kurdish formations from the border areas, as well as joint patrols in this zone. The areas adjacent to the zone inhabited by Kurds de jure came under the control of the Moscow-allied Syrian government in Damascus, in a number of important points for the first time since 2012, units of the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) appeared, but in fact control over the situation has since been carried out by the military police of Russia.