Turkey and US agree to mend ties over Syria

Sparring nations discuss possible joint deployment in northern region of war-torn country

Kurds at Syria/Turkey border
On a hill near the Turkish-Syrian border, Kurds watch US-led air strikes against Islamic State militants. Kurdish fighters in Kobane continue to fight IS on the ground.
(Image credit: Gokhan Sahin/Getty)

The US and Turkey have reached an agreement to defuse the crisis in northern Syria, with Turkey proposing a joint deployment in the region if a US-backed Kurdish militia leaves a border area.

The US has “armed, trained and aided Kurdish fighters with air support and special forces, as the main ground force in its campaign against Islamic State,” says Reuters.

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But the Turkish government views the Kurdish fighters as an “extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has fought a decades-long war against Ankara,” says Al-Jazeera.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson met Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan during a two-day visit that followed weeks of escalating anti-American rhetoric from the Turkish government.

“We’re going to act together from this point forward. We’re going to lock arms. We’re going to work through the issues that are causing difficulties for us and we’re going to resolve them,” Tillerson told a news conference after a meeting with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu.

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