Syrian regime forces and the Turkish military clashed on Tuesday for the first time since Ankara launched an offensive in northeastern Syria three weeks ago, a war monitor said.
"Heavy fighting erupted for the first time between the Syrian and Turkish armies," the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported.
The Britain-based monitoring group said artillery and machinegun fire was exchanged near the village of Assadiya, south of the border town of Ras al-Ain.
At least six Syrian soldiers were wounded in the fighting, the Observatory said.
Sources told Zaman al-Wasl that the Syrian National Army said 14 regime troops were taken captive following clashes in Tal al-Hawa village.
The Turkish military and the SNA attacked Kurdish forces in northeastern Syria on October 9 with the aim of creating a roughly 30-kilometre (20-mile) deep buffer zone.
Kurdish forces agreed to withdraw from a 120-kilometre (75 mile) long, Arab-majority segment of the 440-kilometre (275-mile) border zone, although clashes have been reported since.
Turkey subsequently reached a deal with the Syrian government's main backer Russia for Kurdish forces to pull back from the entire border area.
Left in the lurch by a US troop withdrawal from the border area, Kurdish forces turned to the regime for protection.
Regime forces are now expected to deploy along much of the border zone but a 10-kilometre-deep strip is to be jointly patrolled by Russian and Turkish troops, starting from Tuesday.
On Monday, three civilians were killed Monday by a motorbike-borne IED in Suluk, a newly-captured town by the SNA, according to the Raqqa Observatory for Human Rights.
The attack is the fifth in a week as IEDs and car bombs have been targeting areas taken by the Syrian National Army.
Two more people lost their lives in mortar fire struck the village of al-Aridha north of Ain Issa town. One civilian was also killed in a landmine explosion near Tal Abyad town.
Sources said the SNA had seized 13 villages in a zone between the towns of Tal Tamr and Ras al-Ain.
Turkey’s foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu on Monday said YPG forces have not fully withdrawn from the planned Safe Zone under a Russia-brokered accord that is about to expire.
Turkey began a military offensive in northeastern Syria targeting the YPG forces on Oct. 9 after President Donald Trump pulled U.S. troops out of the area, setting off a regional power shift that analysts say benefits Moscow and Damascus.
If the YPG does not fulfill the agreement to pull back more than 30 km (18 miles) from Turkey’s border, Turkish-led forces will “clear these terrorists from here”, he said.
“There are those who have withdrawn. (Syrian) regime elements are confirming this, Russia is confirming this as well. But it is not possible to say all of them have withdrawn,” Cavusoglu told reporters in Ankara.
Under the deal agreed on Oct. 22 between Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Syrian border guards and Russian military police are supposed to clear the region of YPG fighters over a six-day period that ends late on Tuesday.
Turkish and Russian forces are then meant to start patrolling a section of the Turkish-Syrian border that runs 10 km deep into Syria.
The deal means President Bashar al-Assad's forces moving back to parts of the northern border with Turkey for the first time in years due to the Syrian civil war, which began in 2011.
“Now, a Russian military delegation is coming (to Turkey),” Cavusoglu said. “Our friends will discuss both the latest situation on the issue of withdrawal and at the end of 150 hours (on Tuesday)... how will the patrols be, what we will do together, what steps we will take.”
(Zaman Al Wasl, Agencies
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