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Ankara (AFP) - Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and US counterpart Donald Trump mooted Monday the creation of a "security zone" in northern Syria as tensions rose over the fate of Kurdish fighters in the war-torn country.

In a telephone conversation, the leaders "discussed the idea of creating a security zone cleared of terrorism in the north of the country," the Turkish presidency said in a statement.

Trump confirmed this in a tweet later, but referred to the proposed area as a "safe zone."

This came after Turkey vowed it "will not be intimidated" by Trump's threats of economic devastation if Ankara attacked Kurdish forces as US troops withdraw from Syria.

Trump on Sunday warned the US would "devastate Turkey economically if they hit Kurds".

Ankara has repeatedly threatened to carry out a cross-border operation against the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG), which have been working closely with the United States in the war on Islamic State (IS) jihadists.

US support for the YPG has been a major source of friction between the NATO allies.

The White House said in a statement that Trump had warned Erdogan against harming Kurdish military units.

"The president expressed the desire to work together to address Turkey's security concerns in northeast Syria while stressing the importance to the United States that Turkey does not mistreat the Kurds and other Syrian democratic forces with whom we have fought to defeat ISIS," White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said.

- 'Security zone' -

But in his subsequent tweet, Trump put a more positive spin, noting that he and Erdogan "also spoke about economic development between the U.S. & Turkey -- great potential to substantially expand!"

The strained relationship between Ankara and Washington initially seemed to improve after Trump announced last month that 2,000 US troops would withdraw from Syria.

Ankara welcomed the decision and Erdogan told Trump that Turkey could finish off the last remnants of IS.

Trump has been pushing for the creation of a 30-kilometre (20-mile) "safe zone" in Syria.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Monday talks were under way on Washington's proposal to establish the zone in flashpoint border areas of northeast Syria.

"We want to make sure that the folks who fought with us to down the (Islamic State group) have security... and also that terrorists acting out of Syria aren't able to attack Turkey," Pompeo said on a visit to Riyadh.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said earlier that Turkey was "not against" a "security zone" in Syria.

And in their conversation Monday, Erdogan assured Trump that Turkey was ready to provide "any kind of support" to the United States in its withdrawal from Syria.

Turkey views the YPG as a "terrorist offshoot" of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has been waging an insurgency against the Turkish state since 1984.

The PKK is blacklisted as a terrorist organisation by Ankara, the United States, and the European Union.

- 'Radical solution' -

Erdogan's spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said Ankara would "continue to fight against them all", referring to IS and the YPG.

There has been growing tension between Turkey and the US over the fate of the YPG, especially after Pompeo this month said Washington would ensure Turkey does not "slaughter" Kurds.

And before a visit to Ankara last week, White House National Security Advisor John Bolton said the US retreat was conditional on the safety of Kurdish fighters, provoking angry retorts from Turkish officials.

Turkey previously launched military offensives in northern Syria in 2016 and 2018 respectively against IS and the YPG. In early 2018, Syrian rebels backed by Turkish military forces captured the YPG's northwestern enclave of Afrin.

Ankara, which supports Syrian opposition fighters, is also involved in the last rebel bastion of Idlib, where Turkey has agreed a buffer zone deal with Damascus ally Russia.

But the deal has not stopped an assault by jihadists in Syria.

Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), an alliance led by jihadists from Al-Qaeda's former Syrian affiliate, last week extended its administrative control over the whole of the Idlib region.

Syria's National Coalition, the leading opposition body, on Sunday called for a "radical solution" to put "an end to its (HTS) presence" in Idlib.

Cavusoglu however said the Idlib deal was being "successfully applied" and that statements that HTS took 50 percent of Idlib are "not true".

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Erdogan, Trump consider creating security zone in Syria

ANKARA (Sputnik) - Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his US counterpart Donald Trump during a phone conversation agreed to speed up negotiations on the creation of a security zone in northeastern Syria, the Turkish leaders administration said on Sunday.

Today, our president held a phone conversation withhis US counterpart Donald Trump. President Erdogan said Turkey was ready totake urgent security measures inthe Manbij region toprevent the PKK-YPG [Kurdistan Workers Party Kurdish People's Protection Units] fromdestabilizing the situation. The leaders also agreed tospeed upthe negotiations initiated bythe heads ofthe headquarters ofthe two countries tocreate a security zone inSyria", the statement says.

The parties agreed totake measures toeliminate the remnants ofthe Daesh* terrorist group inSyria and toprevent its revival, it added.

Erdogan also expressed his condolences toTrump inconnection withthe death ofthe US troops asa result ofthe terrorist attack inManbij, adding that this provocation is aimed atinfluencing the decision ofthe US President towithdraw US troops fromSyria.

READ MORE: US Delivering Javelin, TOW Anti-Tank Missile Systems toYPG inManbij Report

On Tuesday, Erdogan said, followinga phone conversation withTrump, that the latter had proposed creating a 30-kilometer (18-mile) buffer zone inSyria. The Turkish leader recalled that he had come witha similar initiative asfar back aswhen Barack Obama was president, butthe proposal never came topass. According toErdogan, the future security zone will be controlled bythe country's military.

AFP 2018 / DELIL SOULEIMAN

The Turkish later said that he had decided topostpone the start ofthe military operation inSyria aftera phone conversation withTrump on14 December, duringwhich the US president also revealed his plans towithdraw troops fromSyria.

On Wednesday, nearly two dozen people, including US servicemen, were killed inManbij inan explosion forwhich the Daesh terrorist group claimed responsibility.

READ MORE: Kremlin Confirms Information onSyrian Army Taking Control ofManbij

The Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) left Manbij atthe end oflast year amidfears that Ankara would launch a military operation there againstthem. The city is controlled byDamascus atthe moment.

Following Trump's announcement, advisers inhis administration have reportedly scrambled toslow or derail the withdrawal bywarning that Daesh has not yet been defeated, inspite oflosing an estimated 99 percent ofthe territory the militants previously amassed inSyria and Iraq.

*Daesh (also known asISIS/ISIL/IS) is a terrorist organization banned inRussia.

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Erdogan, Trump Agree to Speed Up Talks on Security Zone in ...

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President Donald Trumps plan to withdraw the U.S. from Syria fell into further disarray Tuesday after Turkeys leader rebuffed Trumps emissary, John Bolton, and angrily dismissed his demand that Turkey agree to protect Americas Kurdish allies.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Bolton had made a grave mistake in setting that condition for the pullout of troops. It is not possible for us to swallow the message Bolton gave from Israel, Erdogan said in Parliament, after refusing to meet with Bolton, the presidents national security adviser, during his visit to Turkey.

The failure of Boltons mission, which was intended to reassure allies that Trump would pull out of Syria in an orderly fashion, raised new questions about whether the United States would be able to come to terms with Turkey, a NATO partner, about how to withdraw 2,000 U.S. troops who fought alongside the Kurds against the Islamic State.

It was the latest example of what has become a recurring motif in Trumps idiosyncratic, leader-to-leader foreign policy: a senior U.S. official humiliated by a foreign head of state who evidently calculated that he could extract a better deal by talking directly to Trump.

Erdogan was contemptuous of Boltons effort to flesh out a U.S. withdrawal that Trump broached in a phone call with Erdogan just before announcing it on Dec. 19.

The Turkish leader hailed Trump for making the right call in an opinion piece in The New York Times. He argued that Turkey, with the second-largest standing army in NATO, was the only country with the power and commitment to replace U.S. forces in northeastern Syria, fight terrorism and ensure stability for the Syrian people.

But Pentagon officials have voiced deep skepticism that Turkish forces have either the capacity or the will to carry out extensive counterterrorism operations against the Islamic State. They also warn that any Turkish incursions into northeastern Syria would lead to clashes with the Syrian Kurdish-Arab coalition allied with the United States.

In Jerusalem, before he traveled to the Turkish capital, Ankara, Bolton pledged that U.S. forces would remain in Syria until the Islamic State was fully defeated, setting the stage for a more gradual withdrawal than the one Trump heralded. He also demanded guarantees that Turkey would not attack Kurdish forces allied with the Americans.

We dont think the Turks ought to undertake military action thats not fully coordinated with and agreed to by the United States, at a minimum so they dont endanger our troops, Bolton told reporters.

Once in Ankara, he also protested to Turkish officials about Erdogans Times piece. In it, the Turkish president wrote that the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State had carried out airstrikes in Raqqa, Syria, and Mosul, Iraq, that showed little or no regard for civilian casualties something he said Turkish troops had avoided in their counterterrorism operations.

Aides to Bolton insisted he did not feel snubbed by Erdogan. The U.S. Embassy in Turkey requested a series of meetings, but due to scheduling conflicts one with President Erdogan was never confirmed, a spokesman for Bolton, Garrett Marquis, said in a statement.

Erdogan said there was no need for a meeting, since he was busy and Bolton had met with his Turkish counterpart, Ibrahim Kalin, anyway. But he said he was now likely to call Trump.

Turkeys main motive for supporting a withdrawal of U.S. forces is that it would end support for the Kurdish Peoples Protection Units, or YPG, which Turkey regards as a terrorist group, said Ozgur Unluhisarcikli, the Ankara director for the German Marshall Fund of the United States. It would also eliminate the prospect of a Kurdish-run autonomous territory in northern Syria, which Turkey regards as a threat to its own stability.

The YPG is widely seen as the Syrian franchise of the Kurdistan Workers Party, the PKK, which has been fighting an insurgency against Turkey since the 1980s and is designated as a terrorist organization by that country, the United States and the European Union.

Turkey supports rebels fighting the Syrian government of President Bashar Assad but opposes groups it considers to be terrorists, including the YPG and the Islamic State.

The Trump administration would like Turkey to agree not to move against the YPG in the event of a U.S. withdrawal. But Unluhisarcikli called that a hopeless cause, adding, It is not a question of whether. Turkey will not tolerate the PKK on its borders. So it is only a matter of time.

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Jan. 8, 2019, 11:03 AM GMT/ UpdatedJan. 8, 2019, 12:05 PM GMT

By Carol E. Lee

ANKARA, Turkey President Donald Trumps plans for withdrawing U.S. troops from Syria were thrown into more uncertainty Tuesday as national security adviser John Bolton left the region after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan refused to meet with him. Boltons mission to smooth a troop withdrawal with U.S. allies instead ended in only widening the rift with Turkey.

The path forward now appears more muddled than ever given Trumps demand for assurances that Turkey protect Syrian Kurds after U.S. troops depart and Erdogans public snub of Bolton.

A senior administration official told NBC News that Trump thought he had gotten a commitment from Erdogan in a Dec. 23 phone call that Turkey would protect the Syrian Kurds, who have been a key U.S. ally in the fight against the Islamic State, after the American troops leave.

But a defiant Erdogan on Tuesday declined to meet with Bolton, who was in Turkey for talks about the withdrawal. In a speech to his political party, Erdogan said that Bolton had made a "serious mistake" in saying no U.S. troops would leave northeast Syria without such a commitment.

Erdogan said that Turkey would never compromise on the issue of the Syrian Kurds, or YPG Kurdish militia, which Turkey sees as a terrorist organization and part of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party.

Bolton met for more than two hours earlier in the day with his Turkish counterpart, Ibrahim Kalin, the senior administration official, who was at the meeting, said. During that meeting, Bolton presented Kalin with a list of five conditions the U.S. has for withdrawing troops from Syria items agreed to by Bolton, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, acting Defense Secretary Pat Shanahan, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford and James Jeffrey, the U.S. envoy for Syria and the fight against ISIS, according to the senior administration official.

The list includes "a negotiated solution to Turkish security concerns, the official said, and stipulates: "We want the protection of all civilians, particularly local minority populations. Well cooperate with Turkey on de-conflicting the airspace over northeast Syria. The United States opposes any mistreatment of opposition forces who fought with us against ISIS.

Turkey rejected the proposal.

"I think its fair to say that the United States stuck by the presidents request as reflected in these points that the Kurds, that the opposition forces that fought with us, not be mistreated," the U.S. official said. "And the Turks stuck by their position that the PYD and the YPG are terrorist groups and theyre free to go after them." (The PYD, or Democratic Union Party, is the political wing of the YPG.)

Kalin told Bolton that Erdogan had committed Turkey to not taking offensive action in Syria while U.S. forces were there, the official said.

The official said Erdogans speech on Tuesday was not at odds with the commitment Trump thought he had gotten from Erdogan during their Dec. 23 phone call.

National Security Council spokesman Garrett Marquis said Erdogan called Kalin during their meeting and told him to send his regards to Bolton. However, Erdogan said he wouldnt be able to spend any time with Bolton because he was headed to Parliament to deliver a speech.

A meeting between Bolton and Erdogan was never confirmed, a U.S. official said, but administration officials had said one was expected.

Speaking before Erdogan's remarks to Parliament, Marquis said Bolton and Kalin had "a productive discussion" and had "identified further issues for dialogue."

Boltons comments about Turkey over the weekend during an interview with reporters traveling with him in Israel had drawn criticism from Turkish officials.

Trump announced Dec. 19 that all U.S. troops would immediately withdraw from Syria. The announcement, which shocked U.S. allies and members of Trumps own administration, stemmed from a phone call with Erdogan in which the Turkish leader convinced the president to withdraw and said Turkey would take over the fight against ISIS.

U.S. officials have since tempered the timeline for withdrawal, saying there isnt one, and Trump has said a drawdown would happen slowly. But Boltons comments Sunday to reporters in Israel marked the first time the U.S. put specific conditions on withdrawal and demanded an agreement from Turkey on the Kurds.

Erdogan said in his speech Tuesday that Turkey has completed preparations for a military operation in Syria. Turkey boasts NATO's second-largest military.

Dunford, Jeffrey and Turkeys deputy foreign and defense ministers also attended Tuesdays meeting with Bolton and Kaln.

Dunford remained in Turkey after Bolton leaves to continue discussions with Turkish officials about a way forward in Syria. Jeffrey plans to meet with the Syrian Kurds this week.

On Monday, Erdogan published an opinion article in The New York Times saying the Turkish government has no argument with the Syrian Kurds.

He called for a stabilization force in Syria that would be created by Turkey. To do so, Turkey would vet the Syrian Kurds who fought with the U.S. against ISIS and include those with no links to terrorist organizations in the new stabilization force, Erdogan wrote.

Only a diverse body can serve all Syrian citizens and bring law and order to various parts of the country, he wrote.

Bolton told Kalin the op-ed was wrong and offensive, the senior administration official said.

Its unclear if Erdogan was directly addressing remarks made by Bolton over the weekend when he wrote: Turkey intends to cooperate and coordinate our actions with our friends and allies.

While Bolton told reporters Sunday that a U.S. withdrawal will be contingent on whether the White House can reach an agreement with Turkey on protecting the Kurds, he also said the time American troops will remain in Syria is not unlimited adding the primary point is we are going to withdraw from northeastern Syria.

The national security advisers repeated caveat that the withdrawal is from northeastern Syria, not Syria overall, underscores a policy shift since Trumps Dec. 19 announcement that all American forces would leave Syria.

Its a reflection of U.S. plans to keep some troops at Al Tanf in southern Syria as a deterrent to Iran even after those in the northern part of the country exit.

Carol E. Lee is a national political reporter for NBC News.

Reuters contributed.

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Turkey's Erdogan criticizes Bolton as rift between NATO ...

On Monday, John Bolton declared that the Trump administrations plan to pull U.S. forces out of Syria is conditioned on protecting the Kurdish warriors who bore the brunt of our fight to defeat ISIS. This condition seemed to preclude a complete withdrawal in the foreseeable future. As I explained:

I dont see how a complete U.S. withdrawal can be accomplished without putting the Kurds in serious jeopardy at the hands of Turkey. Turkey regards the Kurdish fighters were allied with as separatists and terrorists. Thus, the Turks cannot reasonably be expected to forebear from attacking the Kurdish forces if the U.S. is out of the picture.

Hoping somehow to work around this difficulty, Bolton traveled to Turkey this week for talks. But Turkeys president Erdogan refused to meet with him.

Instead, Erdogan went on television and chastised Americas national security adviser. He said that Bolton made a serious mistake in conditioning U.S. withdrawal from Syria on protecting the Kurds. He then added this threat:

Very soon, we will take action to neutralize terrorist organizations in Syria.

Erdogan regards our Kurdish allies in Syria as terrorists.

Was Bolton speaking for the administration when he said protection of our Kurdish allies is a precondition for withdrawal Syria? I hope so.

It would be dishonorable to abandon those who fought alongside (and often ahead) of our troops in the war against ISIS, leaving them vulnerable to a fearsome attack by the Turks. Such disgraceful conduct might well have serious adverse consequences the next time we try to enlist a regional force to fight terrorists.

If Bolton spoke out of turn on such an important matter, I dont see how Trump can retain his services. If he spoke for the administration, Trump needs to make it clear to Erdogan that we will defend the Kurds against any attack by Turkey and will not withdraw from Syria as long as the threat of attack looms. Erdogan is most unlikely to attack the Kurds as long as were present, and the cost of maintaining 2,000 troops in Syria isnt high.

Turkey has no right to wage a war of aggression against a U.S. ally in Syria. And America cannot afford to be seen knuckling under to threats by a second rate power one that purports, itself, to be a U.S. ally.

Erdogan is preparing for important local elections in two months. Tough talk about the Kurds can only help him. Humiliating the American national security adviser helps him too.

But beyond these short-term considerations, Erdogan has designs in Syria. They include not just crushing the Kurds, but also becoming a major player in the fight to fill that countrys power vacuum.

The U.S. can reasonably regard Turkey as among the least malignant potential players in Syria. Thats a low bar, of course, considering that the other players include Iran, Russia, Assad, and ISIS (or its successors and rival jihadists).

Couple that with Trumps desire to sell arms to Turkey and one can understand the presidents desire to accommodate Erdogan. The Turkish strong man obviously understands it, or he wouldnt have treated Bolton as he did.

On the other side of the ledger is Americas honor, its level of trustworthiness and respect in the world, its ability to enlist allies in future fights against terrorism, and its ability to make sure ISIS is well and truly crushed in Syria.

Well see how Trump weighs these competing values and considerations.

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Erdogan snubs Bolton, then denounces him on TV | Power Line