(Zaman Al Wasl)- Over the past few days, barricades of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) have prevented people in the border areas from fleeing and moving to areas far from the border following the Turkish plan to begin a military operation to set up a buffer zone.
After rumors circulated that the PYD had withdrawn its gunmen from the border posts near Tal Abyad and Ras al-Ain, and booby-trapped houses inside them, some residents started trying to get some of their belongings out of the area. However, Asayiş checkpoints demanded an approval card, not allowing the passage of those who do not carry it.
Zalkha, 28, says her husband sent her from Tartus to the town of Slouk to take their furniture out of a small village near the border before the outbreak of clashes between the Turkish army and Kurdish forces, but because they did not have a security clearance paper, their passage was blocked by Asayiş checkpoint.
During the past two days, the Kurdish self-management leaders in the Tal Abyad area organized more than 10 meetings a day in Solouk with the people of the big villages on the road of Aleppo-Hasaka, to rally support for the Bedouin tribes in the area against the expected Turkish military operation, and to be prepared to receive the displaced in case things lead to war.
Activist Abdul Malik Al-Ali said that Kurdish leaders are currently unloading warehouses and transporting goods secretly to the countryside and remote areas in order not to create displacement, pointing out that most Kurds are influential in Ras al-Ayn and can take out what they want without approval paper.
Al-Ali indicated that the PYD gunmen returned to dig trenches and fortify the dirt around the town of Mabrouka on the border with Raqqa, where seven trucks carrying pre-made concrete arches have been found to support tunnels dug by militants near the border with Turkey.
The self-management’s vision of this project is that the civilian councils in their various institutions should
manage the area, that the Asayish security forces will maintain their security and safety of local military councils (formed recently) by protecting the border strip under international supervision. While, according to the advisor of the Democratic Union Party, Badran Jia Kurd, the People’s Protection Units withdraw with their heavy weapons.
A few days ago, the Turkish Defense Ministry announced the start of the establishment of the Joint Operations Center under the agreement between Ankara and Washington on the safe area, a day after the arrival of a US delegation of six people to the province of Şanlıurfa opposite the Syrian areas of Ain Arab, Tal Abyad and Ras Al Ain.
Zaman Al Wasl
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