Syria’s Manbij council urges aid for 130000 displaced

“The last seven or eight months of the Obama administration were marked by its total absence” as far as Ankara was concerned, said Ibrahim Kalin, spokesman and senior adviser to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. As you probably know and many of your listeners know, the US government funds a lot of our work here and has been a big champion of impartial humanitarian assistance around the world.

Binali Yildirim, Turkey’s prime minister, said the meeting would continue on Wednesday. But President Trump has an opportunity to turn things around in Turkey’s view. “We hope that will not be a safe haven for terrorist organizations”. “Hence a share point must be found. Talks are still continuing”.

Relations between Turkey and the USA deteriorated over American backing of the YPG, which has expanded its sphere of influence in northern Syria as it conquered vast tracks of land from Isis with the backing of American air power.

But each new twist in the conflict makes return a more distant dream for those huddling at the border.

While Turkey, Russia and the United States are all fighting against IS, they support different camps and tension remains because of Ankara’s opposition to the involvement of Syrian Kurdish militia forces.

Later on Tuesday, Yildirim said countries operating in Syria must coordinate their actions to eliminate all terrorist groups.

Army General Joseph Votel, who heads U.S. Central Command, told the Senate panel the U.S. isn’t aligned against Turkey – calling it a “vital partner” – and understands its concerns.

“It’s risky, you take your life in your hands if you try”.

“We’ve criticized nations such as Russian Federation, for example, for undertaking military actions in the Ukraine or Crimea without the request of the government”, said Kaine, a frequent critic of the legal authorities under which the ISIS fight is being waged and a proponent for a renewed Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF).

Syria’s foreign ministry urged the United Nations secretary general and security council to “force Turkey to withdraw its invasion forces from Syrian land and stop the attacks”, SANA said.

The plan to defeat ISIS in Raqqa is part of a larger strategy the Trump administration is pursuing against ISIS.

The top generals from Turkey, the United States and Russian Federation met Tuesday in Turkey to discuss mutual concerns about military operations in northern Syria.

Friday’s military statement says that since the Turkish operation started in August, the joint Turkish and Syrian opposition forces killed as many as 2,647 IS militants and 425 Syrian Kurdish fighters in Syria.

Turkish tanks crossed the Syrian border as artillery and fighter jets pounded the militants in an operation backed by the US-led coalition.

The top generals from Turkey, US and Russian Federation have met to discuss developments in Syria and Iraq to prevent “the risk of a conflict” during their fight against ISIL.

Russian Federation and Turkey co-brokered a cease-fire in December that helped reduce the scale of fighting between Syrian President Bashar Assad and the opposition, and they also co-sponsored two rounds of talks this year between Assad’s government and its foes. This has been a major headache for US planners, particularly at the Central Intelligence Agency and Defense Department, as divergent agendas and differing friends have led to a Janus-faced policy.

Turkey and Russia signed an inter-governmental agreement on realizing the construction of the planned Turkish Stream gas pipeline to pump Russian gas under Turkish waters in the Black Sea toward Europe in October at the World Energy Congress.

Syria can only be at peace under a non-sectarian democratic government that is safe for all its people, Yildirim said. No such encounter as the Elbe handshake has actually occurred, but the Russians and the Americans are only five miles apart, patrolling villages to the west of Manbij in order to keep Turkish and Turkish-backed FSA forces from attacking Kurdish militias in the city, as the Turkish government has repeatedly threatened to do, but which both Moscow and Washington have been seeking to prevent.

Turkish officials adamantly assert that they have provided the U.S. Justice Department with voluminous evidence of Gulen’s direct involvement in the failed coup.

The YPG is a key fighting force in the SDF, which spearheaded the victories against IS in the flashpoint towns of Kobane and Manbij.

Similar positions were staked out by Turkish officials in a series of interviews this week as the United States nears a decision on the Raqqa operation. More recently, we have provided a range of social services and other emergency assistance in Turkey, reaching about 100,000 Syrian and Turkish men, women and children in 2016 alone.