ANKARA: The US State Department on Wednesday denied media reports that a deal had been reached between the United States and Turkey on a three-step plan for withdrawing the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia from Syria’s Manbij.
“We don’t have any agreements yet with the government of Turkey,” department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said in a statement in Washington.
“We’re continuing to have ongoing conversations regarding Syria and other issues of mutual concern,” she said, adding that American and Turkish officials had met in Ankara last week for talks on the issue.
Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency said on Wednesday Ankara and Washington had reached a technical agreement on the withdrawal plan, a move Turkey has long sought from the United States.
The report comes as differences over Syria policy and Washington’s decision in December to move its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem have strained ties between the NATO allies.
Turkey is outraged by US support for the YPG militia, considering them a terrorist organization. Ankara has threatened to push its offensive in northern Syria’s Afrin region further east to Manbij.
Manbij is a potential flashpoint. The Syrian government, Kurdish militants, Syrian rebel groups, Turkey, and the United States all have a military presence in northern Syria.
Under the terms of the plan to be finalized during a visit by Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu to Washington on June 4, the YPG will withdraw from Manbij 30 days after the deal is signed, Anadolu said, quoting sources who attended meetings at which the decisions were made.
Turkish and US military forces will start joint supervision in Manbij 45 days after the agreement is signed and a local administration will be formed 60 days after June 4, Anadolu said.
Earlier on Wednesday, Cavusoglu told broadcaster AHaber that a timetable for the Manbij plans could be set during talks with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Washington, and that it could be implemented before the end of the summer.
Cavusoglu was also quoted by media on his return flight from Germany saying that, if finalized, the plan for Manbij could be applied throughout northern Syria.
However, a local Manbij official later told Reuters that Cavusoglu’s assertions that US and Turkish forces would temporarily control the region were “premature” and lacked credibility.
Relations between Ankara and Washington have hit a low-point due to factors such as the sentencing this month in New York of a former Turkish state bank executive to 32 months in prison for taking part in an Iran sanctions-busting scheme, a case Turkey has called a political attack.
DEFENCE PROCUREMENT
Turkey has also caused unease in Washington with its decision to buy S-400 surface-to-air missiles from Russia and drew criticism over its detention of a US Christian pastor, Andrew Brunson, on terrorism charges.
Brunson faces up to 35 years in prison on charges of links to the network Ankara blames for a 2016 coup attempt. The pastor denied the charges in a Turkish court this month.
A US Senate committee last week passed its version of a $716 billion defense policy bill, including a measure to prevent Turkey from buying Lockheed Martin F-35 jets, citing Brunson and the Russian missile deal.
Cavusoglu, however, said that if the United States blocked Turkey from buying the jets, Ankara would go elsewhere to meet its needs, adding that it was unlikely Washington would be able to back out of the deal.
Turkey has plans to buy more than 100 of the F-35 jets and the Pentagon last year awarded Lockheed $3.7 billion in an interim payment for the production of 50 of the aircraft earmarked for non-US customers, including Ankara.
US says in talks with Turkey on YPG withdrawal from Syria’s Manbij
US says in talks with Turkey on YPG withdrawal from Syria’s Manbij
- The US denies media reports that a deal had been reached between the US and Turkey on a three-step plan for withdrawing the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia from Syria’s Manbij.
- The report comes as differences over Syria policy and Washington’s decision to move its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem have strained ties between the NATO allies
Rubio plans to update Netanyahu on US-Iran talks in Israel next week, officials say
- Trump is weighing whether to take military action against Tehran as the administration surges military resources to the region
- Dozens of US fighter jets, including F-35s, F-22s and F-16s, have left bases in the US and Europe in recent days to head to the Middle East
WASHINGTON: Secretary of State Marco Rubio plans to travel to Israel next week to update Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the US-Iran nuclear talks, two Trump administration officials said.
Rubio is expected to meet with Netanyahu on Feb. 28, according to the officials, who spoke Wednesday on condition of anonymity to detail travel plans that have not yet been announced.
The US and Iran recently have held two rounds of indirect talks over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program.
Iran has agreed to draw up a written proposal to address US concerns that were raised during this week’s Geneva talks, according to another senior US official who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
That official said top national security officials gathered Wednesday in the White House Situation Room to discuss Iran, and were briefed that the “full forces” needed to carry out potential military action are expected to be in place by mid-March. The official did not provide a timeline for when Iran is expected to deliver its written response.
Officials from both the US and Iran had publicly offered some muted optimism about progress this week, with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi even saying that “a new window has opened” for reaching an agreement.
“In some ways, it went well,” US Vice President JD Vance said about the talks in an interview Tuesday with Fox News Channel. “But in other ways, it was very clear that the president has set some red lines that the Iranians are not yet willing to actually acknowledge and work through.”
Netanyahu visited the White House last week to urge President Donald Trump to ensure that any deal about Iran’s nuclear program also include steps to neutralize Iran’s ballistic missile program and end its funding for proxy groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah.
Trump is weighing whether to take military action against Tehran as the administration surges military resources to the region, raising concerns that any attack could spiral into a larger conflict in the Middle East.
On Friday, Trump told reporters that a change in power in Iran “seems like that would be the best thing that could happen.” He added, “For 47 years, they’ve been talking and talking and talking.”
The Trump administration has dispatched the USS Gerald R. Ford, the world’s largest aircraft carrier, from the Caribbean Sea to the Mideast to join a second carrier as well as other warships and military assets that the US has built up in the region.
Dozens of US fighter jets, including F-35s, F-22s and F-16s, have left bases in the US and Europe in recent days to head to the Middle East, according to the Military Air Tracking Alliance, a team of about 30 open-source analysts that routinely analyzes military and government flight activity.
The team says it’s also tracked more than 85 fuel tankers and over 170 cargo planes heading into the region.
Steffan Watkins, a researcher based in Canada and a member of the MATA, said he also has spotted support aircraft like six of the military’s early-warning E-3 aircraft head to a base in Saudi Arabia.
Those aircraft are key for coordinating operations with a large number of aircraft. He says they were pulled from bases in Japan, Germany and Hawaii.
