With President Donald Trump withdrawing U.S. troops from northeastern Syria and abandoning the United States’ Kurdish allies, Turkish forces are making an incursion into that area just as critics of the U.S. withdrawal predicted they would. A U.S. delegation including Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday met for four hours with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Thursday. At a press conference following the meeting Pence, claimed Turkey agreed to a “ceasefire” in northeastern Syria. But Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu in a separate press conference made it clear that a “ceasefire” isn’t what the Turkish government and Erdoğan have in mind.
Speaking in Ankara, Turkey, Cavusoglu told reporters, “This is not a stopping of the operation. This is not a ceasefire because a ceasefire takes place between two legitimate parties.”
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”We agree on collecting YPG heavy weapons, destroying their positions, fortifications” – Turkey’s Foreign Minister Cavusoglu
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“Pause in Turkey’s operation in Syria is not a cease-fire, cease-fire can only happen between two legitimate sides” – Turkey’s Cavusoglu
View the complete October 17 article by Alex Henderson on the AlterNet website here.