The Times | By Tom Parfitt (Moscow), and Hannah Lucinda Smith (Istanbul) | October 23, 2019

The leaders of Russia and Turkey have agreed to enforce the removal of Kurdish fighters from northeastern Syria and conduct joint patrols, in a deal that secured Moscow’s dominance in the region.

After talks lasting almost seven hours in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, President Erdogan said he had reached a “historic” deal with his “dear friend” President Putin: from noon on Wednesday Russian military police and Syrian border guards will “facilitate the removal” of Kurdish YPG militia to a depth of 32km from the Turkey-Syria border, within 150 hours.

After that deadline joint Russian-Turkish patrols will operate to a depth of 9.6km to the east and west of the area of Operation Peace Spring, as Turkey’s invasion of northern Syria is called. YPG troops, which dominate the Syrian Defence Forces (SDF), will also leave the towns of Tal Abyad, Ras al-Ain, Manbij and Tal Rafat.

Ankara and Moscow expressed their commitment to Syria’s territorial integrity and Mr Erdogan insisted that despite the incursion “we do not want to acquire someone else’s lands”.

Mr Putin said he understood Mr Erdogan’s wish to ensure Turkey’s national security and his concerns over separatists near its border, but stability in Syria could only be reached by securing its sovereignty. He said the agreement would enable the return of refugees.

Russia “shares the Turkish side’s concern over the increasing threat of terrorism and the growing religious feuds in the area”, he added. “Recently, these controversies and separatist pressures have been intentionally fuelled from outside, in our view.”

Sergey Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, said the deal would help to “stop the bloodshed”.

The Sochi meeting came shortly before a deadline for the withdrawal of Kurdish fighters from the area agreed upon under a ceasefire deal struck between Mr Erdogan and Mike Pence, the US vice-president, in Ankara last Thursday. Mr Erdogan had threatened that he would immediately resume the assault and “continue crushing heads” of Kurdish militia should the deal not be upheld.

President Trump, whose decision to start pulling US troops out of Kurdish-controlled areas two weeks ago — effectively abandoning the West’s ally in the fight against Isis, and clearing a path for the Turkish offensive — has been largely shunted out of the equation.

Turkey said the aim of its incursion was to purge the area of Kurdish fighters, whom it accuses of links to “terrorists” and create a buffer zone where it could resettle two million Syrian refugees.

The four towns that are to be cleared of the YPG are all Arab-majority regions that were taken by Kurdish-led forces as they expanded across Syria’s north with US backing in 2015. Some of the rebel groups now fighting alongside the Turkish army hail from those towns, and harbour a deep grudge against Kurdish forces.

In Turkey, Mr Erdogan will be able to sell the settlement as a victory. Rojava, the Kurdish-led quasi-state that has sprung up on his southern border, is no more, at least militarily. Operation Peace Spring has been completed in less than two weeks, with Turkey getting almost everything it has demanded. With Republic Day celebrations due next week, Mr Erdogan has positioned himself to give a storming victory address to the nation.

His biggest concession appears to be on the resettlement of Syrian refugees to the safe zone: one million of them initially; half the number he had hoped for. Also, the area of Turkish control agreed upon with Mr Putin is far smaller than his original blueprint, with most of it controlled jointly by the Russians and Turks.

Most Syrian refugees living in Turkey fled earlier from the north of the country, where mass atrocities were carried out by Assad’s and then Russian forces. They are unlikely to return willingly to an area where Moscow and Damascus hold sway.

Fahrettin Altun, Mr Erdogan’s chief spin doctor, described the deal as marking “the beginning of a new era” in Russia-Turkey relations. “This is a great day for civilised nations fighting against terrorist groups,” he said.

President Assad of Syria struck a defiant pose yesterday (Tuesday), visiting troops in the northwestern Idlib province, where his forces are battling rebels near a stronghold carved out by Turkey.

He called Mr Erdogan a thief. “He stole the factories and the wheat and the oil in co-operation with Daesh [Isis] and now is stealing the land,” he said.

Assad said he was ready to support any “popular resistance” against Turkey, including by Kurdish fighters. “We are in the middle of a battle and the right thing to do is to rally efforts to lessen the damages from the invasion and to expel the invader sooner or later.”

The Kremlin is keen to avoid a direct clash between Turkish forces and the Syrian army, and Mr Putin said that co-operation between the two was vital to ensure peace. Dialogue between the Syrian government and the Kurds was also essential, he added. The Kurds, he said, were an “inalienable part of the multinational Syrian people”.

Mr Putin said it was important that Isis fighters formerly held by the Kurds did not escape to roam again on territory that had been taken over by Turkey. Sergei Shoigu, Russia’s defence minister, demanded yesterday (Tuesday) that prisons were made secure as up to 500 inmates had already gone missing.

In Qamishli, Kurds angry at being “stabbed in the back” by Mr Trump chanted anti-American slogans and pelted US armoured vehicles with potatoes and tomatoes as they departed the Kurdish-dominated city on Monday. The US withdrawal, slow at first, quickened pace as American soldiers found themselves sandwiched between the Turkish advance and the return of Assad’s army to the area.

The Pentagon was dealt a fresh embarrassment on Tuesday as the Iraqi military issued a statement saying that the US troops who were leaving Syria did not have approval to enter Iraq. Washington had claimed that they would be redeployed there to continue operations against Isis.

Mark Esper, the US Defence Secretary, said he would speak to the Iraqi defence minister on Wednesday. He insisted Washington did not want to keep the troops in Iraq “interminably” and intended to “eventually get them home”.