This was part of the terms of the Russian-Turkish agreement signed on October 22nd. On Friday, November 1, Turkish and Russian military began to patrol the border area in northeastern Syria together.

Patrols began at about 9:00 am GMT in a village in the Dirbassiyeh region, AFP correspondent said from the Turkish side of the border, where the Turkish army took journalists to cover the event.

On board a dozen Turkish and Russian military vehicles, the soldiers headed east of Dirbassiyeh to patrol a strip of territory tens of kilometers long, according to Turkish military sources.

Check the withdrawal of the Kurds

Under an agreement reached on 22 October between Turkish Presidents Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russian Vladimir Putin, the Kurdish People's Protective Unit (YPG) militia had until Tuesday at 3 pm GMT to withdraw from its border positions. Turkey.

Ankara intends to set up a "security zone" some 30 kilometers deep along its border to separate it from the YPG, which it describes as "terrorists" but which are allied with the Western countries in the fight against the Islamic State Organization (IEO).

While Russian Defense Minister Sergei Choygou said on Tuesday that the withdrawal of Kurdish fighters was over, the Turkish president later said that Turkey could check the reality of this departure after launching joint patrols with the Kurdish fighters. Russians.

Under the control of Damascus

In an interview recorded on state television, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said he did not want to "turn Turkey into an enemy", despite the offensive of his "enemy" Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the north of the country, which provoked clashes with Syrian soldiers in mid-October.

"This is where the role of (friendly) countries comes in, like Russia and Iran," he said.

He added that areas in northeastern Syria still under YPG control will revert to Damascus' control without an agreement between the two camps. According to him, the government will not immediately demand Kurdish fighters to surrender their weapons when the Syrian army deploys on these territories.

With AFP and Reuters