The "pause" isn't about the Kurds or anyone else, it is an excuse to remove sanctions from Turkey. The agreement was most likely engineered by Putin. This is how communist countries take care of each other, they propagandize policy and pretend it is all going to be okay.
17 October 2019
17 October 2019
...According to a text of the agreement, (click here) Ankara promised that the military operation, dubbed ‘Peace Spring’, will be "halted upon completion of this withdrawal." The "safe zone" in question, the text says, "will be primarily enforced by the Turkish Armed Forces."
During the 120-hour period no further sanctions - triggered by the Turkish incursion - will be imposed on Ankara. When the ceasefire becomes a “permanent” one, Washington will cancel the executive restrictions against Turkey, Pence explained.
The US President Donald Trump, for his part, stated that the sanctions were no longer necessary after the deal had been agreed upon. Hailing the "amazing" outcome of the negotiations,Trump also said that it required a “tough love" to get the deal done....
The BBC
Yep, everyone is blowing smoke up Putin's skirt.
17 October 2019
By Steven Rosenberg
...In the Middle East, (click here) the transformation is stark. Four years after Moscow launched its military operation in Syria, Russia is replacing America as the key player and power broker in the region.
In the space of just a few days, Vladimir Putin has spoken by phone to the Turkish president and invited him to Moscow; he had a phone call with the Israeli prime minister where they discussed "security issues"; he visited Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
This is how popular Russian tabloid Moskovsky Komsomolets views the change:
"The current situation in the Middle East would have been unthinkable in the days of Henry Kissinger and his idea of 'global geopolitical chess'. The oversized giant by the name of America lost its way in broad daylight… while Russian diplomacy is ahead of the game.
"Russia plays the role of the universal mediator and political broker, and none of the regional powers can ignore it."...
This is what Vladimir Putin has accomplished in Syria and for this he gets fanfare? He is responsible for innumerable deaths in the Middle East, increased aggression by Turkey and continued the war at the eastern border of Ukraine. I hardly call him a peacemaker. Trump is his puppet in hopes of winning another term in office.
..The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), (click here) a monitoring group based in the UK, estimated the death toll since the start of the war to be as high as 511,000 as of March 2018. Years of relentless fighting left 6.6 million displaced internally and 5.6 million around the world, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)....
...Indiscriminate attacks on civilians and civilian objects by the Syrian-Russian military alliance persisted in 2018. In February, government forces launched a military campaign to retake Eastern Ghouta, an urban suburb of Damascus. Over 1,600 civilians were reportedly killed between February 18 until March 21. The Syrian-Russian military alliance struck at least 25 medical facilities, 11 schools, and countless civilian residences.
Similarly, on June 16, the alliance led an offensive in Daraa and Quneitra governorates, southwest of Syria, triggering massive displacement towards Jordan and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
Parties to the conflict continued to use unlawful weapons. The Syrian-Russian military alliance used internationally banned cluster munitions and chemical weapons in re-taking areas. Human Rights Watch investigated 36 cluster munition attacks between July 2017 and June 2018 and another two-dozen more possible cluster munition attacks. Evidence suggests the alliance used incendiary weapons in Ghouta and Daraa....
