APD | Russia to dispatch police, troops to Syria under deal with Turkey

By APD writer Aditya Nugraha

**MOSCOW, Oct. 24 (APD) -- **A Russian official at the defense ministry said the nation will send police, troops and equipment to Syria under a deal with Turkey amid the current cease-of-fire period of Turkish offensive against Kurdish militants in northern Syria, a Russian media reported in Thursday.

Quoting an unnamed Defense Ministry source, Russia’s RIA news agency said that Moscow would send dispatch a further 276 military policemen and 33 units of military hardware to Syria in a week.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, unveiled a 10-point memorandum of understanding earlier this week following lengthy talks in Sochi on the situation in northeastern Syria.

Under the deal, which put Turkey’s offensive on hold, Russian military police and Syrian border guards entered the northern border regions to facilitate the removal of Kurds’ YPG militants and their weapons to a depth of 30 kilometers from Syria’s frontier with Turkey.

Once the process is complete, within 150 hours, Turkish and Russian soldiers will begin joint patrols of the entire border area to a depth of 10 kilometers with the exception of the border city of Qamishli in Hasakah Province.

Russia and Turkey have agreed to remove Kurdish militants from border areas in northern Syria and launch joint patrols there. The Ankara-Moscow deal was announced shortly before the expiry of that deadline.

Turkey launched its military onslaught in northern Syria earlier this month, shortly after the pullout of the United States’ troops from the region.

Turkey agreed on the United States-brokered truce on October 17 that entitled Turkey to suspend its onslaught in the region for 5 days to give the opportunity for Kurdish militants to withdraw from its stronghold area in the region.

Kurdish militias were Washington’s ally in its war against Islamic State (IS) in the region. On the other hand, Turkey has labeled Kurdish militias as terrorist group for its decades-long attacks that breached the security inside Turkey territory.

(ASIA PACIFIC DAILY)