Kurdish-led forces withdraw from besieged Syria town amid shaky Turkey ceasefire deal
- Turkey paused the offensive on Thursday for five days under a deal agreed between President Tayyip Erdogan and US Vice-President Mike Pence
- Erdogan has warned that Turkey will resume the assault when the deadline expires on Tuesday if Kurdish forces had not pulled back from the safe zone
The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces fully withdrew from a Turkish-encircled town in northern Syria on Sunday, in what appeared to be the start of a wider pull-out under a ceasefire deal.
Ankara launched a cross-border attack against Syria’s Kurds on October 9 after the United States announced a military pull-out from the war-torn country’s north.
A US-brokered ceasefire was announced late on Thursday, giving Kurdish forces 120 hours to withdraw from a buffer area Ankara wants to create on Syrian territory along its southern frontier.
A Turkish military source said on Monday that the deadline for the withdrawal is Tuesday evening. “It started at 10pm Thursday ... so it finishes at 10pm Tuesday,” the source said.
The deal requires the SDF – the de facto army of Kurdish authorities in northeastern Syria – to pull out of the border zone extending 32km (20 miles) deep into Syrian territory, the length of which is not clear.
The Kurds have agreed to withdraw from an Arab-majority stretch of border from Tal Abyad to Ras al-Ain, around 120km.