Syria safe zone centre with US fully operational: Turkey

A joint Turkish-US operation centre to establish and manage a safe zone in northeast Syria is fully operational, Turkish Defence Minister Hulusi Akar was quoted as saying on Saturday by the state-owned Anadolu news agency.

Turkey and the United States agreed to set up the joint operations centre for the proposed zone along Syria’s northeastern border but gave few details, such as the size of the zone or the command structure of the forces that would operate there.

“The joint operation centre has started working at full capacity. The command of centre is by one US general and one Turkish general,” Akar was quoted as saying.

Akar added that the first joint helicopter flight was due to take place on Saturday after Turkish drones carried out surveillance work in the safe zone area last week.

Washington and Ankara have been at odds over plans for northeastern Syria, where the Kurdish YPG militia formed the main part of a US-backed force fighting Daesh. Turkey considers the YPG a terrorist group.

Meanwhile, Syria’s Kurds said they would support the implementation of a US-Turkey deal to set up a buffer zone in their areas along the Turkish border.

On Saturday, Mazloum Kobani, the head of the YPG-led Syrian Democratic Forces, said his alliance would back the deal.

“We will strive to ensure the success of (US) efforts towards implementing the understanding... with the Turkish state,” he said.

“The SDF will be a positive party towards the success of this operation,” he told journalists in the northeastern town of Hasakeh.

US Central Command said late on Friday that the SDF — which expelled the Islamic State group from their last patch of territory in eastern Syria in March — had destroyed outposts in the border area.

“The SDF destroyed military fortifications” on Thursday, it said in a statement on Twitter.

“This demonstrates (the) SDF’s commitment to support implementation of the security mechanism framework.”

On Wednesday, the US and Turkish defence ministers “confirmed their intent to take immediate, coordinated steps to implement the framework”, said a statement by the US Department of Defence.

Also on Saturday, a representative of the US-led coalition fighting Daesh said the buffer area sought to “limit any uncoordinated military operations.”

“We believe that this dialogue is the only way to secure the border area in a sustainable manner,” Brigadier-General Nicholas Pond said.

On Aug.7, Turkish and US officials agreed to establish a joint operations centre to oversee the creation of the “safe zone.”

Little is known about its size or how it will work, but Ankara has said there would be observation posts and joint patrols.

Damascus has rejected the agreement as serving “Turkey’s expansionist ambitions.”

Syrian Kurds have established an autonomous region in northeast Syria amid the country’s eight-year war.

But as the fight against Daesh winds down, the prospect of a US military withdrawal had stoked Kurdish fears of a long-threatened Turkish attack.

Later during the day, a car bomb exploded in the rebel-held Syrian city of Idlib, a war monitor and opposition news channel said, as air strikes hit its outskirts in a government offensive on the last major opposition bastion.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and opposition-run Orient News said a car blew up in the Al Qusoor neighbourhood. The Observatory said the blast killed two and wounded at least 11.

The city and the surrounding Idlib province in northwest Syria form part of the last big rebel stronghold in Syria.

A new push by Syrian government and Russian forces to take the area has seen heavy strikes and advances this week in the south of Idlib province and nearby Hama, prompting a new civilian exodus. Hundreds of people have been killed in the campaign since late April, the United Nations says.

On Friday Russia-backed Syrian troops reclaimed a cluster of towns they had lost early in the eight-year-old war, driving out the last rebel fighters from the Hama countryside.

Agencies