ANKARA, Oct. 22 (Xinhua) -- Some 800 members of the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) have pulled out of the planned safe zone in northern Syria, as part of the U.S.-Turkey cease-fire deal, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Tuesday.
From 700-800 Syrian Kurdish militias have left the region since last Thursday when Turkey and the United States agreed on a 120-hour pause in the former's Syria operation aiming at forcing the YPG to withdraw from the planned safe zone, Erdogan told reporters in Istanbul, before leaving for Sochi for a meeting with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.
"We've been told that the remaining 1,200-1,300 (Kurdish fighters) will rapidly withdraw," Erdogan said.
Turkish army, accompanied by Syrian rebels, have maintained control of 160 residential areas and a total of 2,200-square-km area in the region, Turkish Defense Ministry spokesperson Nadide Sebnem Aktop told reporters on Tuesday, noting that so far 136 vehicles of the YPG had left the region.
"While the Turkish Armed Forces fully abide by the agreement on the establishment of a safe zone, 42 harassing fire/violations were carried out by YPG/PKK terrorists so far," Aktop added.
Ankara sees the YPG as the Syrian offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which is outlawed for its armed struggle against Turkey over the past three decades. But the U.S. troops fought the Islamic State (IS) militants in Syria, with the help the YPG fighters.
Following the recent U.S. decision to withdraw its troops from northern Syria, Turkish soldiers launched an incursion into Syria earlier this month in a bid to drive Kurdish fighters out of the area.
Under the U.S.-Turkey deal reached on Oct. 17 on a five-day truce, Turkey agreed to halt its military operation for 120 hours which will end at 1900 GMT on Tuesday.
