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Pence Announces Cease-Fire After Turkish Incursion in Syria Turkey Agrees to Pause Fighting, but Not to Withdraw Forces From Northern Syria
(about 1 hour later)
ANKARA, Turkey — Turkey’s president agreed to halt his military invasion of northeast Syria on Thursday, following hours of negotiations with two top Trump administration officials, to allow Kurdish fighters to leave the area and avoid, for now, an onslaught that had threatened to prolong Syria’s civil war. ANKARA, Turkey — Vice President Mike Pence on Thursday said Turkey had agreed to suspend its military operations in northeast Syria for five days while Syrian Kurdish fighters left the area, immediately raising questions about whether the agreement was a diplomatic breakthrough or a capitulation to the Turkish government.
The cease-fire would last for five days, Vice President Mike Pence announced in Ankara after meeting with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey for more than four hours. Emerging from close to five hours of deliberations with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Mr. Pence said that the American delegation had achieved the cease-fire it had hoped to broker in the hastily organized trip to Ankara, the Turkish capital. Hailing the agreement as a diplomatic victory for President Trump, he called it a ‘‘solution we believe will save lives.”
Mr. Pence cited a “strong relationship” between the United States and Turkey, two longtime NATO allies that had gridlocked over which terror threat in northeast Syria — the Islamic State or a Kurdish separatist group — posed an immediate problem. The agreement “ends the violence — which is what President Trump sent us here to do,” Mr. Pence said at a news conference at the ambassador’s residence.
“Today, we have agreed to a cease-fire in Syria,” Mr. Pence said, noting that there would be a five-day pause in military operations while the United States facilitated the withdrawal of the Kurdish-led Y.P.G. militia from affected areas in the safe zone. But Turkey’s foreign minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, immediately countered that the agreement was not a cease-fire at all, but merely a “pause for our operation.” He added that “as a result of our president’s skillful leadership, we got what we wanted.”
“Once that is completed, Turkey has agreed to a permanent cease-fire,” Mr. Pence said. He noted that the United States accepted the importance of the safe zone to protect Turkey’s legitimate security interests. “It is fully agreed that the safe zone will be under the control of the Turkish Armed Forces,” he said. “Giving a break does not mean to withdraw our forces,” he said. “We will go on being there.”
In return, he said, President Trump agreed not to impose any further sanctions on Turkey, and to remove the economic sanctions that were imposed on Turkey last week once the permanent cease-fire took place. Mr. Cavusoglu also directly contradicted Mr. Pence’s announcement that Turkey had agreed to engage in no military action in Kobani, Syria.
Kurdish fighters now have 120 hours to leave a safe zone reaching about 20 miles south of Turkey’s border with Syria, Mr. Pence said. He said that while the Trump administration did not agree with Mr. Erdogan’s invasion, American officials also understood Turkey’s concerns about the Kurdish fighters, whom they regard as part of a terror group. “We did not make any promises about Kobani,” Mr. Cavusoglu said, adding that they would discuss Kobani with Russia going forward.
The agreement “ends the violence — which is what President Trump sent us here to do,” Mr. Pence said. Though the announcement halts fighting for five days, and gave Mr. Pence an agreement to return home with, it was in practice less of a cease-fire deal than an acknowledgement of the United States’ rapid loss of influence in Syria since the Turkish invasion began last Wednesday.
Mr. Trump hailed the announcement as a diplomatic victory. “Great news out of Turkey,” he wrote on Twitter, minutes before Mr. Pence and Mr. Pompeo were scheduled to hold a news conference. “Thank you to @RTErdogan. Millions of lives will be saved!” In less than two weeks, the United States’ official position has reversed from one of tacit support for Syrian Kurdish control of northern Syria — to one of total acceptance of Turkish territorial ambitions in the same area.
“This seems to be a lot of smoke and mirrors,” said Aaron Stein, author of Turkey’s New Foreign Policy, and director of the Middle East program at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. “It’s all based on the fictional notion that the U.S. has a say in a place where we withdrew our soldiers.”
“The U.S. is irrelevant here, the U.S. has left,” Mr. Stein added.
The announcement also raised questions about whether the Kurds would even agree to be moved out of northern Syria. Mr. Pence told reporters that the United States was already working with Kurdish militia members, as well as Syrian defense forces to facilitate an “orderly withdrawal.” That process, he said, had “literally already begun.”
What was clear, however, was that even a pause in violence was enough of a carrot for Mr. Pence to bring home for the Trump administration to declare victory after bipartisan condemnation for one of the biggest self-created foreign policy crises of the Trump administration.
“This deal could NEVER have been made 3 days ago,” Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter. “There needed to be some ‘tough’ love in order to get it done. Great for everybody. Proud of all!”
Mr. Trump was referring to a letter he sent to Mr. Erdogan, warning him in plain terms rarely used between heads of state, to not “be a tough guy. Don’t be a fool!” The American delegation arrived in Ankara earlier Thursday amid reports that Mr. Erdogan had launched the invasion in part as a reaction to the letter.
The letter was dated Oct. 9, the same day that a Turkish military operation began against Syrian Kurdish fighters who had partnered with American troops against the Islamic State.
“Let’s work out a good deal!” Mr. Trump wrote to Mr. Erdogan. “You don’t want to be responsible for slaughtering thousands of people, and I don’t want to be responsible for destroying the Turkish economy — and I will.”
As part of the agreement announced Thursday by Mr. Pence, the Trump administration also agreed not to impose any further sanctions on Turkey, and to remove the economic sanctions that were imposed this week once the “permanent cease-fire” took place.
It was not clear that Mr. Trump’s letter had the sobering effect on Mr. Erdogan that he had anticipated. Multiple news outlets reported on Thursday that the Turkish president put the letter “in a bin,” although aides did not respond when asked if he had literally thrown it away.
Leaving the Turkish capital with any agreement, however, was something of a best-case scenario for Mr. Pence and Mr. Pompeo, whose aides had lowered expectations ahead of the meeting.
Their task had been further complicated by Mr. Trump appearing to wash his hands of the region, saying on Wednesday that it “has nothing to do with us.”
But analysts said it remains unclear how workable the deal will ultimately prove, given that most of the main actors in northern Syria — the Kurdish leadership and the Russian and Syrian governments — were not at the negotiating table.
Even if the Syrian Kurdish forces leave areas currently under attack by Turkish troops, there would be nothing to stop them from redeploying to other areas along the Syrian border that are now under the Russian and Syrian governments’ sphere of influence, said Sinan Ulgen, chairman of the Center for Economics and Foreign Policy Studies, an Istanbul-based research group.
In a desperate attempt to stop the Turkish advance, the Kurdish leadership ceded military control of most of its remaining territory to the Syrian regime and its Russian backers on Sunday, after American troops evacuated the area.
Decisions relating to northern Syria are no longer “just about Turkey and the United States,” said Mr. Ulgen. “It’s also about Russia and the Syrian regime and the Y.P.G.”
Annie Karni and Lara Jakes reported from Ankara, Turkey, and Patrick Kingsley from Istanbul.