US proposed 'security zone' under Turkish control along the Syrian side of the two countries' border was rejected by Syria's Kurds.
The Kurds would accept the deployment of UN forces along the separation line between Kurdish fighters and Turkish troops to ward off a threatened offensive, senior political leader Aldar Khalil said. "Other choices are unacceptable as they infringe on the sovereignty of Syria and the sovereignty of our autonomous region," Khalil said.
On Tuesday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that Ankara would set up a "security zone" in northern Syria, as suggested by US President Donald Trump. The leaders spoke with each other over the phone after Trump threatened to "devastate" the Turkish economy if Ankara attacks Kurdish forces in Syria.
While Turkey welcomed Washington's plan to withdraw 2000 US troops from Syria, it pushes the war-torn nation towards Russia for support.
And the future of US-backed Kurdish militia forces labelled terrorists by Ankara has poisoned ties between US and Turkey, the NATO allies.
The Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) have been the key US ally in the fight against the Islamic State group (IS), taking heavy losses in a campaign now nearing its conclusion, with the jihadists confined to an ever-shrinking enclave of just 15 square kilometres (under six square miles). Turkey regards the People's Protection Units (YPG) as a terrorist group.
The group has waged a deadly insurgency for self-rule in southeastern Turkey since 1984.
Erdogan said he had a "quite positive" telephone conversation with Trump late on Monday where he reaffirmed that "a 30 kilometre security zone along the Syrian border... will be set up by us," he told Trukish MPs.
There was no immediate response from US officials or the Kurdish authorities who control more than 400km of the Turkish-Syrian border.
The Syrian Kurdish leader said he regretted the US proposal to give Turkey control over the mooted "security zone".
"Sadly, Trump wants to implement these safe regions through cooperation with Turkey. But any role for Turkey will upset the balance and the region will not be safe," Khalil said.
When Trump announced the decision to withdraw troops from Syria, opponents of the withdrawal expressed fears that the Turkish military and allied Syrian Arab rebels would launch an offensive to drive YPG fighters away from the border. And Turkey considered YPG an extension of the banned Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).
"On the contrary, Turkey is a party (to the dispute) and any party cannot guarantee security." The Turkish army has launched two major operations in Syria — Euphrates Shield in 2016 against IS jihadists and Syrian Kurdish fighters, and Olive Branch in 2018 targeting the Kurds.
The last offensive saw Turkish troops and their Syrian rebel allies overrun the Kurdish enclave of Afrin in the northwest, one of several the Kurds had governed since 2012.
Critics have accused Turkish troops and their proxies of the military occupation of Syrian sovereign territory.
