Kurdish forces start Syria-Turkey border pullback

Kurdish forces in northeastern Syria left several positions along the long border with Turkey yesterday, complying with a deal that sees Damascus, Ankara and Moscow carve up their now-defunct autonomous region. Russian forces have started patrols along the flashpoint frontier, filling the vacuum left by a US troop withdrawal that effectively returned a third of the country to the Moscow-backed regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

A correspondent saw a Russian patrol set off from the town of Qamishli westwards along the Turkish border flying Russian flags, accompanied by Kurdish security forces. US President Donald Trump has praised the agreement reached in Sochi by NATO member Turkey and Russia and rejoiced that US personnel were leaving the “long blood-stained sand” of Syria, leaving just a residual contingent behind “where they have the oil”.

The deal signed in the Black Sea resort by Syria’s two main foreign brokers gives Kurdish forces until Tuesday to withdraw to a line 30 kilometres (19 miles) from the border. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces had pulled out of some areas at the eastern end of the border on Thursday. “The SDF have withdrawn from positions between Derbasiyeh and Amuda in the Hasakeh countryside,” the Britain-based war monitor’s head, Rami Abdel Rahman, said.

Fighters of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) -- the main component of the SDF -- remained in many positions along the 440 kilometre (275 mile) border, he added. The Observatory also reported clashes near the town of Tal Tamr between SDF fighters and some of the Syrian former rebels paid by Turkey to fight ground battles.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is embattled on the domestic political front, hopes to use the pocket to resettle at least half of the 3.6 million Syrian refugees his country hosts.