ANKARA (AA): Turkey’s president announced Friday that he would meet withhis U.S. counterpart in the UN General Assembly in late September.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan told reporters that he would mainly discuss the issuessurrounding the northwestern Syrian town of Manbij, on which Turkey and theU.S. came to a deal focusing on the withdrawal of YPG/PKK terrorists fromthe region.
Erdogan also underlined that Turkey would “take care” of itself if the theWashington continued its current stance on Turkey’s exclusion from the F-35fighter jet program.
U.S. officials have expressed that short of completely doing away with theRussian S-400 system, Ankara would not be allowed to return to the JointStrike Fighter program.
The Trump administration suspended Turkey from the F-35 system overAnkara’s receipt of Russian S-400 missile defense systems, but there issome hope centered on a compromise wherein Turkey could keep the Russiananti-air system, but keep it turned off in order to return to the program.
U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly voiced reluctance to penalizeTurkey over its purchase of Russia’s S-400 missile defense system, doing sowhen announcing Ankara’s removal from the program in July.
The Trump administration has maintained that the S-400 system could exposethe advanced fighter to possible Russian subterfuge and is incompatiblewith NATO systems.
Turkey, however, counters that the S-400 would not be integrated into NATOsystems and would not pose a threat to the alliance.
Regarding a safe zone in northern Syria, the U.S. and Turkey agreed toestablish Erdogan said that US delegation sought to further narrow 20-milesafe zone, though temporary agreement holds.
Turkish and U.S. military officials reached an agreement on Aug. 7 that thesafe zone in northern Syria will serve as a “peace corridor” for displacedSyrians longing to return home and a Joint Operations Center in Turkey willbe set up to coordinate its establishment.
Idlib bombardment
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Necessary warnings were expressed on harassment of Turkish observationpoints around Idlib, Syria following meeting with Putin, Erdogan added.
Continuing its violations of last year’s cease-fire agreement, the Syrianregime on Aug. 22 attacked a Turkish military observation post innorthwestern Syria with harassment fire, officials told Anadolu Agency.
Turkey and Russia agreed last September to turn Idlib into a de-escalationzone where acts of aggression are expressly prohibited.
Under the deal, opposition groups in Idlib would remain in areas where theywere already present, while Russia and Turkey would carry out joint patrolsin the area to prevent a resumption of fighting.
The Syrian regime and its allies, however, have consistently broken theterms of the cease-fire, launching frequent attacks inside thede-escalation zone.
The de-escalation zone is currently home to some 4 million civilians,including hundreds of thousands recently displaced by regime forcesthroughout the war-weary country.
Syria has been locked in a vicious civil war since early 2011, when theAssad regime cracked down on pro-democracy protests with unexpectedferocity.
Since then, hundreds of thousands of people have been killed and more than10 million others displaced, according to UN officials.
