Turkey readies for action as U.S. talks on Syria safe zone struggle
Source:Yahoo News Date:07Aug2019
Trump’s special envoy for Syria said after an earlier round of talks on the safe zone last week that Turkey had taken a “pretty tough” position. “The Turks want a deeper zone than the one we think makes sense,” James Jeffrey said.
Washington has proposed a two-tiered zone, with a 5-kilometre (three-mile) demilitarised strip bolstered by an additional 9 km cleared of heavy weapons – stretching in total less than half the distance into Syria that Turkey is seeking.
A Turkish security official said that differences between the two sides over the depth of the zone were narrowing but had not been completely bridged.
“(The United States) reached a point close to our proposal but a full agreement could not be reached,” he said, adding that Turkey insisted on the full 32 kilometres, as Trump himself endorsed in a January tweet.
“Fundamentally we want what Trump said to be implemented. It is not normal for talks to go on this long,” he said.