Russia, Turkey and the United States need to increase security in Syria, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said Monday.
"We really hope that the steps that are being taken now — our interaction with both Turkish and American colleagues — will allow us not to lower, but to increase the level of security and stability in this region," Shoigu told participants of the Beijing Xiangshan Forum.
He also said that some camps for Daesh prisoners were no longer guarded, and the terrorists began to "spread out." The minister added that the question of protecting Daesh prison facilities needed to be urgently resolved.
The PKK-affiliated People's Protection Units (YPG) has been reported releasing Daesh prisoners it held in northern Syria after Turkey launched Operation Peace Spring. The YPG has been trying to use captured Daesh terrorists as a bargaining chip, hoping to provoke the West against Turkey.
Several reports said YPG terrorists deliberately set free hundreds of Daesh prisoners held in a camp near the town of Ayn Issa.
Turkey launched Operation Peace Spring, the third in a series of cross-border anti-terror operations in northern Syria targeting terrorists affiliated with Daesh and the PKK's Syrian offshoot the YPG, on Oct. 9 at 4 p.m.
The operation, conducted in line with the country's right to self-defense borne out of international law and U.N. Security Council resolutions, aims to establish a terror-free safe zone for Syrians return in the area east of the Euphrates River controlled by the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which is dominated by YPG terrorists.
The PKK — listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the U.S. and the European Union — has waged a terror campaign against Turkey for more than 30 years, resulting in the deaths of nearly 40,000 people, including women, children and infants.
Turkey has long decried the threat from terrorists east of the Euphrates in northern Syria, pledging military action to prevent the formation of a "terrorist corridor" there.
