Fri. Mar 29th, 2024

The Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said Turkey is planning to introduce “safe zones” in the northern region of Syria in order to make a safe comeback of Syrian refugees, residing in Turkey, to their respective homeland.

According to Al-Jazeera news reports, the Turkish president has also stated that about 3,00,000 Syrian refugees had already returned to the Northern areas of Syria, which was under control of rebel groups backed by the Turkish government, adding he expected millions to return to the proposed “safe zones”. Approximately four million Syrian refugees have sought refuge in Turkey.

The United States President Donald Trump had in December announced the withdrawal of American troops from Syria, following which Erdogan has said the two have held talks on establishing a 32-km long safe zone in Syria along with Turkey’s border.

Erdogan has on Friday said, he expected that safe zone would be established within a few months, otherwise, it would be turned into a “buffer zone” without any assistance from other countries.

Erdogan said the safe zone will help to protect Turkey from “terrorists” group and programme, referring to US-backed Kurdish militia forces, which used to control the areas in northeastern Syrian along with the Turkey’s border.

Turkey wants to have a zone to contain fighters from the Kurdish YPG, which the US has trained and also armed to fight against the Islamic State terrorists group of Levant and Iraq in Syria.

On Thursday, Turkish foreign Minister said Turkey has the capacity to establish the safe zone in Syria by its own, although, they could further include the US, Russia, or any other nation if they wanted to cooperate.

However, the YPG has dismissed the idea of planning “safe zones” as they fear fresh offensives operations against territory under their control.

 

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