Pence to visit Turkey, seek truce in Syria

If attacks on Kurds persist, Trump says ‘a lot in store’

Turkish soldiers prepare to enter Syria Tuesday at Karkamis in southeastern Turkey as Russia announced its forces were on patrol in northern Syria. More photos at arkansasonline.com/1016border/
Turkish soldiers prepare to enter Syria Tuesday at Karkamis in southeastern Turkey as Russia announced its forces were on patrol in northern Syria. More photos at arkansasonline.com/1016border/

WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump said Tuesday that Vice President Mike Pence will be traveling to Turkey today to try to reach a cease-fire deal to end Turkey's assault against Kurdish fighters and civilians in Syria -- an offensive Turkey began after Trump announced that he was moving U.S. troops out of the way.

"We're asking for a cease-fire" and have "a lot in store" if Turkey doesn't comply, Trump said at a Rose Garden ceremony.

Pence will lead a delegation to Ankara that will include Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and national security adviser Robert O'Brien. They will be meeting with Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Separately, Russia announced Tuesday that its units were patrolling between Turkish and Syrian military forces near the northern Syrian town of Manbij, in a sign that Moscow, a key ally of the Syrian government, was moving to fill a security vacuum after U.S. troops withdrew from the area.

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The Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement that military police in Manbij were patrolling "along the line of contact between the Syrian Arab Republic and Turkey." A senior Russian official said Moscow was working to prevent a military confrontation between Ankara and Damascus.

"No one wants this kind of clash to happen. It's completely inadmissible. So, of course, we will not allow that," Alexander Lavrentyev, Russia's special presidential envoy for Syria, told reporters in the United Arab Emirates, according to the Interfax news agency.

Russia's announcement came as the United States said Tuesday that it has removed its own troops from Manbij. "Coalition forces are executing a deliberate withdrawal from northeast Syria," Col. Myles Caggins, a U.S. military spokesman, wrote on Twitter. "We are out of Manbij."

A week-old Turkish offensive into northern Syria has upended alliances and redrawn spheres of control in Syria's eight-year conflict. It has uprooted tens of thousands of civilians and sparked fears of a resurgence by the Islamic State.

Kelly Craft, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, told reporters Washington is "deeply concerned" that Russian troops are patrolling between the two sides.

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu spoke to U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper to discuss "issues of mutual interest in the context of situation in Syria," the Russian Defense Ministry said in a brief statement, without elaborating.

A day earlier, the Syrian Kurds announced that they had struck an agreement with the government of President Bashar Assad -- an act of desperation that ended a Kurdish experiment in self-rule, signed as the Turkish military closed in.

The deal would allow Syrian government forces to take over security in some border areas, according to Syrian Kurdish officials, who said their administration would maintain control of local institutions. Early Tuesday, Syrian state television reported that government troops had entered Manbij.

Ankara has said its military operation is aimed at clearing the border of Syrian Kurdish forces with links to Kurdish militants inside Turkey and repatriating Syrian refugees to the country.

The United States and other Western allies of Turkey have condemned the operation, warning that it could lead to the resurgence of the Islamic State. Trump's administration on Monday imposed sanctions on Turkey's defense and energy ministries, as well as on three senior Turkish officials.

Erdogan has given no indication he is willing to halt the offensive. "We will soon secure the region from Manbij to the border with Iraq," he said Tuesday during a visit to Azerbaijan, referring to a 230-mile expanse.

BORDER TOWNS

The offensive has raised questions about the future of towns and cities all along the border. On Tuesday though, the focus was on Manbij, a town 17 miles from the Turkish border that has been a focal point of Turkey's security anxieties as well as its troubled relationship with the United States.

Turkey had long demanded that the United States expel the Syrian Democratic Forces from Manbij and complained that a deal struck with Washington to remove the fighters was not being implemented.

Turkey and the United States agreed in December on a plan for the Syrian Democratic Forces to withdraw from Manbij, about 25 miles west of the Euphrates River, and a road map envisioned joint U.S.-Turkish patrols in the city. Turkish officials view the Kurdish fighters in Syria as terrorists because of their links to the Kurdistan Workers' Party, which has waged a decades-long war for autonomy inside Turkey.

Months of negotiations over Manbij were scuttled when Turkey began its military offensive last week.

Moscow, which has friendly ties with the Syrian and Turkish governments, appeared uniquely positioned to prevent the two militaries from clashing around Manbij and elsewhere in Syria. At the same, Russia has made clear that it opposes Turkey's military operation. Lavrentyev, Russia's Syria envoy, said Tuesday that the offensive in Syria is "unacceptable."

"We have never favored and never supported the idea of sending, for instance, Turkish units there, not to mention Syrian armed opposition," he said, referring to the Turkish-backed rebel groups, according to Interfax.

Russia's principal interests in Syria include "mounting a successful defense of its Syrian ally in Damascus, restoring Damascus' writ and sovereignty over the entire territory of Syria, and then additionally reconciling the Syrian government with its regional and international surroundings," said Sam Heller, a senior analyst at the International Crisis Group. Russia's effort to normalize Syria's relationships have included promoting a 20-year-old agreement between Ankara and Damascus intended to address Turkey's security concerns -- an accord that could eventually lead to restoring relations between the two governments.

But Turkey's plans to control a swath of Syrian territory, for an undetermined period of time, appeared to clash with Russia's aims. And despite Moscow's announcement Tuesday of peacekeeping efforts, fighting around Manbij continued, according to several reports.

Asked on Sky News if Turkey's military was willing to fight Assad's army, Vice President Fuat Oktay said, "We hope it's not going to happen, but again we are determined to get control over Manbij."

A Kurdish official said Tuesday that scattered clashes occurred outside Manbij and that artillery fire from Turkey had struck the town. The Turkish-backed Syrian National Army said Tuesday that its forces had "started freeing villages" around Manbij a day earlier but had not entered.

Syrian government troops were mainly spread around the edges of Manbij, but Kurdish fighters still controlled the town, according to Abu Musafir, a member of the Manbij Tribal Council. The majority of ethnic Arab residents "were excited about the military operation led by Turkey and the Syrian National Army," he said, while at the same time worried about the return of the Syrian army.

CASUALTY FIGURES

In the first week of the Turkish assault, at least 154 fighters from the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces have been killed, as well as 128 fighters from Turkish-backed Syrian factions, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitor of the war. It said at least 69 civilians have been killed in Syria. Turkey says six of its soldiers have died, as well as at least 20 Turkish civilians killed by Kurdish mortar fire across the border.

The United Nations has said that as many as 160,000 people, including 70,000 children, have been displaced since the fighting in northeastern Syria escalated nearly a week ago. The Kurdish administration said Tuesday that as many as 275,000 internally displaced people are in the region.

The Kurdish Red Crescent said Monday that international aid groups have pulled their international staffs from the northeast, leaving camps for displaced people with "extremely limited support."

Across the border in Iraq on Tuesday, exhausted Syrian Kurds said they had paid smugglers to get them out. Carrying few possessions, they had walked for hours in the darkness before trudging toward checkpoints.

"I've spent so many years watching the tragedy of the refugees on the news. I never thought I could be one of them," said Rafat, 45, who arrived Monday at the Domiz refugee camp. "My legs hurt, my calves hurt. We are all exhausted."

Although most had expected the offensive, its speed and scope had come as a shock.

"We were ready to stay in our houses. We really thought it would settle down," said Hevin Mohammed Hamcho, 29, who made the journey from the Syrian border town of Ras al-Ayn while eight months pregnant. "We thought the Americans would protect us, but then they just stepped back so quickly. We trusted them, and that's left us with nothing."

One family, unable to afford the smugglers' fee, said they had packed onto two motorbikes and driven as fast as they could across the border. "The Peshmerga were shooting at us," said Rasheed, 24, referring to the Kurdish security forces in Iraq. "We held tight and just kept going," he said.

The U.N. Security Council planned a closed meeting today on the situation, requested by Germany and other European Union members. "Everybody hopes that ... we can do something to bring back the parties to the peace process," said the current Security Council president, South Africa's U.N. Ambassador Jerry Matjila.

NATO ambassadors also will meet today in Brussels on Turkey's offensive, said alliance Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg.

In Britain, meanwhile, a day after foreign ministers from all 28 EU member states agreed unanimously to stop selling arms to Turkey -- the first time the bloc has reached such a decision about a NATO ally -- Britain announced a pause in such ties with Turkey.

Dominic Raab, Britain's foreign secretary, told the House of Commons on Tuesday that "no further export licenses to Turkey for items which might be used in military operations in Syria will be granted" until the government has conducted a review.

Information for this article was contributed by Kareem Fahim, Sarah Dadouch, Will Englund, Asser Khatab, Louisa Loveluck, Mustafa Salim, Natasha Abbakumova and Erin Cunningham of The Washington Post; by Lefteris Pitarakis, Bassem Mroue, Nataliya Vasilyeva, Edith M. Lederer and Suzan Fraser of The Associated Press; and by Carlotta Gall and Patrick Kingsley of The New York Times.

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AP/LEFTERIS PITARAKIS

A Turkish rocket fired from inside Turkey streaks toward a target early Tuesday in Ras al-Ayn in northern Syria.

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AP/UGUR CAN

Turkish forces hold a position Tuesday inside Syria near the town of Manbij, currently the focus of the assault on Kurdish forces.

A Section on 10/16/2019

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