US envoy Jeffrey to visit Turkey for talks on Syria withdrawal
The U.S. special envoy for Syria will arrive in capital Ankara on Monday. James Jeffrey will hold meetings with a delegation of Turkish Foreign Ministry and military officials in his two-day visit.
- World
- Compiled from wire services
- Published Date: 11:32 | 03 March 2019
- Modified Date: 11:32 | 03 March 2019
U.S. Special Representative for Syria Engagement and anti-Daesh efforts James Jeffrey will come to Turkey on Monday, the White House said in a statement on Sunday.
Jeffrey is due to arrive in Ankara on Monday and is scheduled to meet with Deputy Foreign Minister Sedat Önal on Tuesday.
The talks will focus on U.S. troop withdrawal from Syria and the implementation of the Manbij road map.
A Turkey-U.S. joint task force established to coordinate U.S. withdrawal from Syria met in Ankara on Thursday and Friday. The meetings focused on details of troop withdrawal from east of the Euphrates and Manbij, the safe zone to be established in northern Syria, and Washington's vow to take back weapons given to the terrorist PKK-affiliated People's Protection Units (YPG).
The U.S. currently has more than 2,000 troops deployed in Syria, but announced last December that they were leaving, revising their statement last week to say some 200-400 would stay.
One of Turkey's top concerns is that U.S., while withdrawing, takes back the weapons and ammunition it gave to the YPG, as it pledged.
Turkey and the U.S. remain at odds over the latter's Syria policy, which is centered on support to the globally-recognized terrorist group PKK's Syrian wing YPG. The U.S. allied itself with the YPG to fight Daesh in Syria, but Turkey argued that using one terror group to fight another makes no sense.
Jeffrey, a former ambassador to Turkey, has also confessed that the Democratic Union Party (PYD) and its armed wing, the YPG, are indeed the Syrian affiliates of the PKK, which is recognized as a terrorist group by the U.S. and EU as well.
"That local partner since 2014 has been the Democratic Union Party which is the Syrian offshoot of PKK but we have not designated it as a terrorist organization, which we did with the PKK," Jeffrey said.
In its more than 30-year terror campaign against Turkey, the PKK -- listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the U.S. and the EU -- has been responsible for the death of some 40,000 people.