Kurdish militia forces, members of the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG), have carved out three autonomous cantons along Turkey's border since Syria was plunged into chaos in March 2011.
Ankara waded militarily in Syria in August last year to push the Islamic State (IS) away from its border and block the cantons from uniting.
Turkey, which officially hosts around 2.8 million Syrian refugees, has long enthusiastically sought to convince its Western allies, particularly the U.S., of the establishment of a safe zone in Syria's north for the refugees.
Despite Trump's remarks, the Turkish government has so far remained cautious about his move, which suggests it may have some misgivings about the initiative.
"The results of Trump's work on this issue (of safe zones) need to be seen first," a Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman said last week.
Russia has signalled it would not oppose the U.S. initiative as long as the Syrian government agreed to the safe zone plan.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that Russia sees the U.S. move as being aimed, as was declared by Trump, at easing the migration burden on neighbouring countries as well as on Europe and the U.S.
"Of course, this would call for coordinating the details and the underlying principle for such zones with the Syrian government," Lavrov told a press conference on Monday.
Sait Yilmaz, a security and foreign policy analyst, does not think the Turkish government would dare to resist the safe zone plan.
【国际英语资讯:Spotlight: Turkey will have to face Kurdish autonomy in Syria: analysts】相关文章:
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