Turkey begins to train Turkmen police force for ISIS-free zone in Syria
by Daily Sabah
ANKARAAug 27, 2015 - 12:00 am GMT+3
by Daily Sabah
Aug 27, 2015 12:00 am
The British newspaper The Telegraph reported on Wednesday that Turkey has begun training a police force for the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS)-free zone in Syria. Despite officials from the Interior Ministry declining to comment on the issue, it is already known that state intuitions in Ankara have been working on a comprehensive plan that include security and infrastructure dimensions to create a safe zone in Syria.
In addition to Turkmen fighters who have enrolled in the U.S.-led train-and-equip program, Turkmen groups have also issued a call for volunteers to enlist in a proposed police force that will be tasked with policing the safe zone, The Telegraph reported. "We have lists of 1,500 to 2,000 men ready to be trained as police who will protect the buffer zone in cooperation with Turkey," Mehmet Oglu, deputy head of the Gaziantep branch of the Syrian Turkmen Nationalist Movement told The Telegraph.
Last month Ankara and Washington reached a mutual understanding to establish an ISIS-free safe zone in Syria along the Turkish border to ensure security and stability, which is expected to cover 110 kilometers west of the Euphrates River stretching to the province of Aleppo. "The goal is to establish an ISIS-free zone and ensure greater security and stability along Turkey's border with Syria," a U.S. official told The New York Times on July 25.
Turkmen leaders who spoke to the newspaper claimed that thousands been forced from their homes by People's Protection Units (YPG) militants, which is the armed wing of the Democratic Union Party (PYD), the Syrian affiliate of the PKK. "The main aim of this buffer zone is to go against the project of Syrian Kurdistan, Ahmet Mahli, head of the Gaziantep branch of the Syrian Turkmen Nationalist Movement, said in an interview with The Telegraph.
In recent months Turkish officials have been concerned about the mass displacement of Turkmens and Arabs as a result of Kurdish advances in Tal Abyad, and drew attention to the operation against ISIS replacing the population with PKK-affiliated Kurds. Since its capture by YPG, almost 15,000 Syrian Arabs and Turkmens have been forced to flee to Turkey, Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD) officials reported.
"When the buffer zone is there, the role of the Turkmens is that some of their factions will be in the fighting front, and then there will be police to protect the buffer zone in cooperation with the Turkish Army and the FSA [Free Syrian Army]," Mahli said.
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