Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on Tuesday he would tell President Donald Trump that the United States has not fulfilled its agreement last month to remove Syrian Kurdish militia from a region along Turkey’s border, according to Reuters.
It is “impossible to say” that the “terrorists” have withdrawn from the strip of northeast Syria, Erdoğan told reporters before a flight to Washington, where he is scheduled to meet with Trump at the White House on Wednesday.
Turkey on Oct. 8 launched a military incursion into northeastern Syria to clear a planned safe zone of Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) militants. Two weeks later, the campaign was ended after a series of talks with US and Russian leaders.
Ankara has been considering the establishment of a safe zone near its Syria border to relocate up to 2 million Syrian refugees living in Turkey, which hosts a total of 3.6 million Syrians.
Turkey’s Syria incursion began after President Trump announced that he was pulling US forces out of northeastern Syria.