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2019-08-25 Syria-Lebanon-Iran
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US-Turkey Syria operations center at full capacity: Minister, Syrian Kurds to help
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[AlAhram] A US-The Sick Man of Europe Turkey
...the decaying remnant of the Ottoman Empire...
operations centre aimed at creating a safe zone in northern Syria is operating at "full capacity", Ottoman Turkish Defence Minister Hulusi Akar said Saturday.
Under an agreement reached between Ankara and Washington earlier this month after difficult negotiations, the joint operations centre will help coordinate the establishment of a buffer between the Ottoman Turkish border and Syrian areas controlled by the US-backed Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG).
"The centre of joint operations has begun to operate at full capacity," Akar told state news agency Anadolu.
He said the first joint helicopter flight took place on Saturday afternoon.
Akar's statement comes shortly after the YPG military group -- which has been a key US ally in Syria but is deemed by Turkey to have terrorist links -- said they would help implement the buffer zone in their areas along the Ottoman Turkish border.
Ankara considers the YPG to be an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) which has fought a bloody insurgency inside Turkey for 35 years and is classified as a "terrorist" organization by Turkey, the US and EU.
Turkey has repeatedly threatened to launch a new military offensive against YPG forces in northern Syria, where the Kurdish group controls a large swathe of land.
The operations centre was initially suggested by Washington to dissuade Ankara from carrying out another cross-border attack, after previous offensives in 2016 and 2018.
The YPG has been a key partner to Washington in the fight against the Islamic State
 ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems....
group in Syria.
But as the fight against IS winds down in the region, the prospect of a US military withdrawal stoked Kurdish fears of a long-threatened Ottoman Turkish attack.
Details of the safe zone are currently hazy, and no date has been set for its implementation
Syria Kurds Say Will Help Implement US-Turkey 'Safe Zone'
[AnNahar] Syria's Kurds said on Saturday they would support the implementation of a US-Turkey deal to set up a buffer zone in their areas along the Turkish border.
The so-called "safe zone" agreed by Washington and Ankara earlier this month aims to create a buffer between the Turkish border and Syrian areas controlled by the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG).
The YPG have played a key role in the US-backed battle against the Islamic State group in Syria, but Ankara views them as "terrorists".
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 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 August 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".
As the fight against IS winds down, the prospect of a US military withdrawal had stoked Kurdish fears of a long-threatened Turkish attack.
Turkey has already carried out two offensives into Syria in 2016 and 2018, the second of which saw it and allied Syrian rebels overrun the Kurdish enclave of Afrin in the northwest. 
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Posted by trailing wife 2019-08-25 00:17||
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