Turkey main guarantor for safe zone in Syria


Turkey is the best party for forming a safe zone east of the Euphrates in northern Syria, a political board member of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) of Syria, Muslim Mohammad, said.

Speaking to Anadolu Agency (AA), Mohammad explained that although some other countries are also active in the region, including Russia and Iran, the main actors for forming a safe zone are Turkey and the U.S.

Emphasizing that locals in the region welcome the idea of a safe zone, Mohammad said Syrian peshmerga should also return to their country and have a duty to protect the safe zone.

The representative of the Syrian Kurdish National Council (ENKS) in the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), Nuri Brimo, also said the Syrian peshmerga also support peace alongside Turkey.

"Syrian peshmerga are ready to deploy in a safe zone to be formed in Syria. The deployment of Syrian pershmerga will contribute to the stability of the region," Brimo said.

Underlining that the idea of a safe zone would benefit the whole region, Brimo said it would also be effective in ending the civil war.

It was previously reported that thousands of the Syrian peshmerga troops are likely to be moved from the KRG in Iraq to designated areas by the U.S. in the near future, following the initial deployment of 400 peshmerga forces. The Rojava Peshmerga mainly consists of Syrian Kurds who left their hometowns and resided in the areas run by the KRG after the Syrian civil war began. These peshmerga forces, with an estimated 8,000 fighters, have been trained by U.S. forces in the cities of Irbil and Dohuk in Iraq since 2012 to be used in anti-Daesh forces in Mosul and along the Iraq-Syria border. However, the PKK's Syrian affiliate, the People's Protection Unit (YPG), had been preventing the Rojava Peshmerga from entering northern Syria due to their close connections with the KDP.