23  October

The leaders of Turkey and Russia have agreed to remove Kurdish forces from northern Syria along the border with Turkey.

Turkey suspended its operation against the Kurds last Thursday at the request of the United States. Ankara launched the offensive to remove a group of Kurdish fighters it regards as a terrorist organization.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed the Syrian situation on Tuesday in the southern Russian resort of Sochi. They agreed that Russian military police and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's border guards would enter an area outside Turkey's field of operation from Wednesday noon, and remove Kurdish forces from a 30-kilometer wide area from the border within 150 hours.

The two countries will reportedly start joint patrols along a 10-kilometer strip of the border after that. Attention is focused on how the Kurds in northern Syria will react to the latest development.