{"id":40424,"date":"2019-08-09T21:22:58","date_gmt":"2019-08-09T21:22:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=40424"},"modified":"2019-08-09T21:22:58","modified_gmt":"2019-08-09T21:22:58","slug":"i-thought-i-would-be-there-forever-says-canadian-freed-from-syria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=40424","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I thought I would be there forever,\u2019 says Canadian freed from Syria"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\nANKARA:\u00a0Ankara\u2019s agreement with Washington to set up a so-called safe zone in northeastern Syria, along with a joint coordination center, has sparked debate about whether it will completely prevent a Turkish offensive into the region.<\/p>\n

\nA day after the announcement of the deal, Damascus criticized it harshly, saying that it is a violation of Syria\u2019s sovereignty and accused Ankara of \u201cexpansionist ambitions,\u201d according to the state-run SANA news agency.<\/p>\n

\nAs the deal is meant to resolve Turkey\u2019s security concerns, experts think it may lead Ankara to halt its plans for an incursion into Syria, at least for now, although no details were given about the scope of the safe zone and timetable for its implementation.<\/p>\n

\nThe US State Department said it welcomed the results of its recent talks with Turkey on setting up a \u201cpeace corridor\u201d in northern Syria.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThe talks seem to me like a pretty good outcome under the circumstances. The agreement on establishing a new process buys time and space, which ideally can be used to shift from arguing over tactical steps to arguing over more substantive ones,\u201d Dareen Khalifa, senior Syria analyst at International Crisis Group, told Arab News.<\/p>\n

\nAnkara\u2019s main priority is to push back US-allied Syrian Kurdish YPG militia from the region. Turkey\u2019s National Security Council met last week over a possible military offensive into Syria against the YPG, which it believes is affiliated with the PKK terror group that has been waging a decades-long insurgency against the Turkish state.<\/p>\n

\nAccording to Khalifa, the prospects for a rapprochement between Ankara and Damascus are clearly fading, especially after the statement of Syria\u2019s Foreign Ministry.<\/p>\n

\nTurkish soldiers were killed in opposition-held Idlib province by regime forces and \u201cAnkara\u2019s control over swaths of Aleppo and their support to the opposition are all contributing factors,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\nKhalifa also noted that \u201cit is not clear that there was an agreement over permanent Turkish forces in the north east.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nIn its statement, Damascus urged Syrian Kurds to align with the Assad government to prevent the implementation of the \u201caggressive US-Turkish project.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nYasin Kucukkaya, a Syria expert from the Global Political Trends Center think tank in Istanbul, said Turkey preferred an \u201cunarmed diplomacy\u201d with the US for a certain time in northern Syria.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cI think all relevant parties, including the Syrian Democratic Forces which include the YPG, were satisfied by the outcome of the negotiations between American and Turkish delegations, because any unilateral move of Turkey would bring damage on the ground,\u201d he told Arab News.<\/p>\n

\nAnkara had blamed Washington for dragging its feet over its security concerns, and had insisted on it breaking its ties with the YPG militia, which controls a large part of northern Syria.<\/p>\n

\nKucukkaya said that the deal halted Turkey\u2019s possible intervention into the region for now.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cAlthough Turkey\u2019s target is to eradicate the YPG and its offshoots, it also prioritizes any withdrawal of the support given to this group,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\nHowever, experts are cautious in any medium-term assessment of Turkey\u2019s plans into the region.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cIt is premature to consider whether this deal has definitely ended Turkish ambitions for an offensive. The bilateral negotiations only prevented an extensive war potential on the ground,\u201d Kucukkaya said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ANKARA:\u00a0Ankara\u2019s agreement with Washington to set up a so-called safe zone in northeastern Syria, along with a joint coordination center, has sparked debate about whether it will completely prevent a Turkish offensive into the region. A day after the announcement of the deal, Damascus criticized it harshly, saying that it is a violation of Syria\u2019s…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":40425,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40424"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40424\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/40425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}