Kurdish militias announce ceasefire with Turkish forces in Syria

A Kurdish-led military council announced Tuesday it had reached a temporary ceasefire agreement with Turkish forces deployed in northern Syria.

The Jarabulus Military Council, backed by Kurdish militias opposed to Turkey, announced in a statement it had reached the agreement throught the intervention of the United States-led coalition to defeat the Islamic State (IS) jihadist group.

The coalition is allied with both the Kurds and the Turkish government _ who are bitter mutual enemies _ in the counter-terrorist military operations seeking to liberate the region from IS control.

The agreement came into force at midnight local time (9 p.m. GMT) on Monday, putting a halt to hostilities between "Jarabulus forces on the banks of the river Sayur and Turkish occupation forces," the statement said.

The council had announced Monday its retreat from the south of the Sayur (a tributary of the Euphrates), an area 20 kilometers (12.4 miles) to the south of Jarabulus that represented the front line of defense established by Manbij's Military Council (allied with Jarabulus').

• In the statement, the fighters explained the ceasefire had been reached in order to "stop the bloodletting of innocents (...) and the Turkish occupation's slaughter of our people."

• It added that "this agreement does not, in any form, mean the acceptance of the Turkish occupation," in reference to Turkish presence along the Syrian border in areas formerly under Kurdish control.

The statement said the international coalition hoped the provisional ceasefire would eventually become a permanent truce.

Turkey began its military intervention in Syria with the aim of preventing Kurdish forces from taking over the enclave of Afrin, on the Euphrates' western bank, and connecting it to their domains on the eastern side of the river.
 EFE
30/8/16