As in a real, honest, meaningful agreement between Turkey and the US?From my reading today- There is NO agreement. Only the usual time buying, lip service as the US continues to move ahead with it's remake of the region.
Kurdistan24WASHINGTON DC (Kurdistan 24) - State Department Spokesperson Heather Nauert emphasized to reporters on Tuesday that the “general roadmap” for Manbij that US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu endorsed the previous day was “conditions-based.”The roadmap is conditions based.
“That means that things can change over time, as conditions change on the ground,” she said.In contrast to Turkish officials, including Cavusoglu, who have insisted there is a specific timeline for a political transition to remove the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) from Manbij and change the local governing council, US officials have refrained from articulating such a timeline.“We can’t attach a specific timeframe to it,” a senior State Department official explained to reporters. There are “several phases” to the roadmap, and we will “move to the next phase, when the previous one is completed.”That, in turn, “will depend on conversations, negotiations, and the physical disposition on the ground in the Manbij area,” he continued.
The dispute between Washington and Ankara centers on the role of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), who provide the leadership of the SDF.Ankara regards the YPG as the Syrian branch of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and as a terrorist organization, while the US disputes that characterization.On Tuesday morning, the YPG announced that it was withdrawing its military advisers from Manbij and that none of its fighters remained in the city.
The YPG withdrew it's advisers- does that really mean none of it's fighters remain? You'd be a fool to believe that! In fact the paragraph below contradicts the above claim.
The US account of the negotiations leading to Monday’s understanding hint at the possibility that the YPG was engaged in some form.“The roadmap was briefed to elements” in Syria, another senior State Department official explained, “with the [SDF], and we’ll need their cooperation in the implementation.”
Which tells us YPG/PKK/SDF is still present in Manbij!
“We did an awful lot of diplomatic work with Turkey and with the SDF to try to provide some reassurances and to ensure the SDF can continue the campaign against [IS],” he continued.
So the SDF/PKK/YPG haven't left at all!
The State Department officials emphasized that Manbij is “stable and fairly bustling”—which, they noted, cannot be taken for granted in Syria. Their objective is to keep Manbij that way.One senior official explained the major source of tension around Manbij. It is rooted in the manner by which the Islamic State (IS) was expelled from the area.Manbij was a major IS center for planning attacks, and then for terrorists to leave Syria, enter and transit Turkey, and proceed onto Europe.
Following the November 2015 attacks in Paris, the coalition began working with the SDF. After three months of difficult fighting in the summer of 2016, the SDF, backed by coalition airpower, finally succeeded in expelling IS from the city.Subsequently, Turkey launched a military operation further north, “Euphrates Shield,” with Turkish-backed opposition forces and US advise-and-assist support. They cleared IS out of that area and further helped seal that exfiltration route, a senior official explained.Of course, that also blocked any SDF movement north toward the Turkish border.
The US-backed SDF and the Turkish-backed opposition force are hostile to one another. So there has been “a fairly tense standoff” between the two. The US has “helped patrol the demarcation line to try to make sure that tensions remain low and de-escalated,” he said.
According to the (potential, possible, maybe or not) roadmap, US forces will be joined by Turkish forces in patrolling the demarcation line.
In Manbij itself, security is—and will continue to be—provided by local forces.Despite Monday’s agreement, significant differences appear to remain between Washington and Ankara that go beyond the timeframe for implementing the Manbij roadmap.Asked about the claim of senior Turkish officials that Manbij is a blueprint for what will happen in cities like Raqqa or Kobani, a senior State Department official replied, “First I’ve ever heard about it.”
A second State Department senior official stated in the transcript that the roadmap is for the “phase after ISIS,”
The “phase after ISIS” That’s convenient.
With the YPG agreement to withdraw, the official said, “we’ve managed to de-escalate some tensions.”
But have the YPG/PKK really agreed to withdraw?RT
Syria’s Manbij Military Council,(YPG/PKK/SDF) a militia allied to the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in northern Syria, said on Wednesday that it will not accept a Turkish military presence in the town, according to the council’s official spokesman. “We will not accept that,” council spokesman Sharfan Darwish told Reuters. Turkey and the United States on Monday reached an agreement for jointly administering Manbij. Darwish said the council was “awaiting explanations and clarification from the international US-led coalition” about the details of the agreement.
It doesn’t seem as if they have agreed to withdraw. Except, maybe, perhaps, for some “military advisers”???France24
The Manbij Military Council, a group allied to the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in northern Syria, said on Wednesday that the Kurdish YPG militia would remove its military advisers from the flashpoint town in the coming days.The town's militia said it was capable of preserving the security and the borders of Manbij against any external threats, adding that it would not accept any Turkish military deployment in the area.
The town's militia is YPG/PKK/SDF and the US and French forces (along with Israeli's)Looks to me like there is NO agreement between Turkey and the US! The destabilization continues and expands....Sputnik-Gunmen Kill 2 Iranian Border Guards Near Frontier With Iraqi Kurdistan
"About 20 armed men made an attempt to enter Iran from the Iraqi territory, the Mehr news agency reported, citing the Iranian Border Guard Commander Brig. Gen. Ghasem Rezaei.The criminals had to return back to Iraq after Iranian authorities sent reinforcement to the area of clashes, the media outlet added"
Of course that's your Kurdish alphabet terror groups in action From earlier: