Turkey To Resume Offensive In Syria If YPG Fails To Withdraw Within 35 Hours - Cavusoglu

Turkey to Resume Offensive in Syria If YPG Fails to Withdraw Within 35 Hours - Cavusoglu

Turkey will resume its offensive in northern Syria if Kurdish forces, seen as terrorists by Ankara, do not withdraw from the border safe zone within 35 hours, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Monday

ANKARA (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 21st October, 2019) Turkey will resume its offensive in northern Syria if Kurdish forces, seen as terrorists by Ankara, do not withdraw from the border safe zone within 35 hours, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Monday.

On October 17, US Vice President Mike Pence announced that the United States and Turkey had agreed on halting the Turkish offensive, launched on October 9 and dubbed Peace Spring, for 120 hours for the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) to leave the area within the 18-mile so-called safe zone, which Ankara intends to control unilaterally. However, both Ankara and Kurds have reported ceasefire violations.

"Harassment fire continues, ... and we have retaliated to those harassment fires. We observe that now the YPG-PKK [Kurdistan Workers' Party] elements start to leave the areas that we are now controlling. We have 35 hours left. If they don't withdraw, our operation will restart," Cavusoglu said in an address at TRT World Forum in Ankara.