• Turkey is about to invade northern Syria. The Kurds: "We will resist at all costs"

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October 07, 2019At August 7th, at the end of a long negotiation, Turkey and the US reached an agreement in Ankara for the establishment of a safe zone, a buffer zone in Northern Syria. The 'buffer' area foreseen in the agreement is 30-32 km wide and 480 kilometers long, extended in Syrian territory along the Turkish border, starting from the east bank of the Euphrates River to the border with Iraq. An area on which the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has demanded control of Turkey, both to eliminate the positions of the Syrian Kurdish Ypg, but also to create a corridor in which to relocate as many as possible of the 3.6 million Syrians have fled to Turkey since 2011.

The agreement included the establishment of a joint operational command center for the armies of the USA and Turkey, which was then regularly established in Turkish territory, in Akcakale, not far from the Syrian border. The agreement reached also includes joint patrol and reconnaissance shifts, using land vehicles, drones and helicopters and the possibility for Ankara F-16s to fly over Syrian airspace. On 8 September last two patrols of the two armies were actually carried out, while in the past two weeks the Turkish F-16s have repeatedly flown over Syrian airspace.