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Turkey will set up a dozen observation posts across northeast Syria, President Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday, insisting that a planned "safe zone" will extend much further than US officials said was covered under a fragile ceasefire deal.
Less than 24 hours after he agreed the five-day truce to allow Kurdish forces time to pull back from Turkey's cross-border assault, Mr Erdogan underlined Ankara's continued ambition to establish a presence along more than 400km of territory inside Syria.
On the border itself shelling could be heard near the Syrian town of Ras al Ain on Friday morning despite Thursday's deal, and a spokesman for the Kurdish-led forces said Turkey was violating the ceasefire, hitting civilian targets in the town.
But journalists at the border said the bombardment subsided around mid-morning and a US official said most of the fighting had stopped, although it would “take time for things to completely quiet down”.
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US president Donald Trump said on Friday he had spoken with Mr Erdogan, who told him there had been some "minor" sniper and mortar fire in northeastern Syria despite the truce, but that it had been quickly eliminated.
“He very much wants the ceasefire, or pause, to work,” Mr Trump said in a post on Twitter. “Likewise, the Kurds want it, and the ultimate solution, to happen.”
The United Nations Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs described the situation at "reportedly calm in most areas, with the exception of Ras al-Ain, where shelling and gunfire continued to be reported earlier today", UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters in New York.
The truce, announced by US vice-president Mike Pence after talks in Ankara with Mr Erdogan, sets out a five-day pause to let the Kurdish-led SDF militia pull out of the Turkish "safe zone".
Humanitarian crisis
The deal was aimed at easing a crisis that saw Mr Trump order a hasty and unexpected US retreat, which his critics say amounted to abandoning loyal Kurdish allies that fought for years alongside US troops against the Islamic State terror group.
Turkey's offensive created a new humanitarian crisis in Syria with 200,000 civilians taking flight, according to Red Cross estimates. It also prompted a security alert over thousands of Islamic State fighters held in Kurdish jails.
Mr Trump praised Thursday’s deal, saying it would save “millions of lives”. Turkey cast it as a victory in its campaign to control territory more than 30km deep into Syria and drive out Kurdish fighters from the YPG, the SDF’s main Kurdish component.
“As of now, the 120-hour period is on. In this 120-hour period, the terrorist organisation, the YPG, will leave the area we identified as a safe zone,” Mr Erdogan told reporters after Friday prayers in Istanbul. The safe zone would be 32km deep, and run “440 km from the very west to the east”, he said.
But the US special envoy for Syria, James Jeffrey, said the accord covered a smaller area where Turkish forces and their Syrian rebel allies were fighting, between two border towns of Ras al Ain and Tel Abyad, just 120km away.
Speaking to journalists later on Friday, Mr Erdogan said Turkey planned to set up 12 observation posts in northeast Syria. A map of the region showed the planned posts stretching from the Iraq border in the east to the Euphrates river nearly 500kmto the west.
Turkish ambitions
With the United States pulling its entire 1,000-strong contingent from northern Syria, the extent of Turkey's ambitions is likely to be determined by Russia and Iran, filling the vacuum created by the US retreat.
The government of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, backed by Moscow and Tehran, has already taken up positions in territory formerly protected by Washington, having been invited to do so by the Kurds.
Mr Jeffrey acknowledged that Turkey was now negotiating with Moscow and Damascus over control of areas that Washington was vacating and were not covered by the US-Turkish truce pact.
“As you know we have a very convoluted situation now with Russian, Syrian army, Turkish, American, SDF and some Daesh [Islamic State]
"Now, the Turks have their own discussions going on with the Russians and the Syrians in other areas of the northeast and in Manbij to the west of the Euphrates. Whether they incorporate that later into a Turkish-controlled safe zone, it was not discussed in any detail."
Sanctions
The joint US-Turkish statement released after Thursday’s talks said Washington and Ankara would co-operate on handling Islamic State fighters and family members held in prisons and camps – an important international concern.
Mr Pence said US sanctions imposed on Tuesday would be lifted once the ceasefire became permanent.
In Washington, US senators who have criticised the Trump administration for failing to prevent the Turkish assault in the first place said they would press ahead with legislation to impose sanctions against Turkey, a Nato ally.
The Turkish assault began after Mr Trump moved US troops out of the way following an October 6th phone call with Mr Erdogan.
Turkey says the “safe zone” would make room to settle up to two million Syrian war refugees – roughly half the number it is currently hosting – and would push back the YPG militia, which Ankara deems a terrorist group due to its links to Kurdish insurgents in southeast Turkey. – Reuters