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  • Syria, Ankara: completed withdrawal of the Kurds, stop to offensive

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October 29, 2019Scade at 4 pm Italian time, the 150-hour truce decided between Russia and Turkey for the withdrawal of Kurdish Ypg militias from the north east of Syria. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, on the occasion of the 96th anniversary of the founding of the Turkish Republic today, has issued a warning: "Nobody underestimate us", but it seems difficult that the Turkish offensive in northern Syria resumes. A delegation from Moscow has been in Ankara since yesterday, to discuss the next steps to be taken in coordination between armies.

According to the agreement reached on 22 October between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Erdogan himself, it is Russia that guarantees the abandonment of the area by Kurdish militants, a withdrawal that the United States has not been able to to guarantee. At the end of this 150-hour timeframe, the armies of Russia and Turkey will begin a joint patrol of the safe zone, in an area 10 km deep along the Turkish Syrian border.

According to reports from the Turkish portal Bianet, between yesterday and today at the Russian military base in Hmeymim armored vehicles Tayfun-U and Tigr, which will be used in patrolling the border, arrived from Russia.

Meanwhile, there is the first direct clash between the Turkish forces, with the local allied militias, and the troops of Damascus south of a border town that was under Ankara's control with the offensive on October 9th.

Six soldiers of the armed forces of Damascus were killed in clashes with Ankara forces in northern Syria, the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights reported, pointing out that they died of "artillery shots" of the Turkish armed forces, while a sixth was the victim of "execution" by the Syrian rebel Filoturs in clashes near the village of al-Assadiya, not far from the border between the two countries.