[AlAhram] The Sick Man of Europe Turkey
 ...just another cheapjack Moslem dictatorship, brought to you by the Moslem Brüderbund...
has information that the Kurdish YPG militia has not completed its withdrawal to 30 km (18.64 miles) from the Ottoman Turkish border in northeast Syria, President Tayyip Erdogan said on Wednesday, despite assurances from Russia that they had left.
He told politicians from his AK Party that Turkey reserved the right to launch another operation against the YPG in the area.
Ankara and Moscow had agreed to remove Kurdish YPG fighters from a depth of 30 km south of the border inside Syria by late on Tuesday and Russia told Turkey that the YPG had left the strip within the 150-hour deadline.
"Even though the information in our hands suggests this has not been succeeded in a full sense, we will give our response to them after our field assessments," he said.
Joint patrols had been set to begin on Tuesday at a depth of 10 km, but Erdogan said in Wednesday's speech that the patrols would begin on Friday and at a depth of just 7 km.
| It will be interesting to see whether the dynamic is different than that of recent joint U.S.-Turkey patrols. |
"If we see that the members of the terrorist organization have not been moved out of the 30 km, or if attacks continue, no matter from where, we reserve our right to carry out our own operation," he said.
Earlier, Defence Minister Hulusi Akar was quoted by state-owned Anadolu Agency as saying that talks between Ottoman Turkish and Russian officials, ongoing since Monday, had concluded and the two delegations had "largely" reached an agreement. 
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