US President Donald Trump touted on Wednesday the ceasefire in northern Syria, saying the agreement he brokered was showing positive results.
"Big success on the Turkey/Syria Border. Safe Zone created! Ceasefire has held and combat missions have ended. Kurds are safe and have worked very nicely with us. Captured ISIS prisoners secured. I will be making a statement at 11:00 A.M. from the White House. Thank you!" Trump tweeted.
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Trump has been heavily criticized by both the Right and the Left in the US over his decision to pull out troops from northern Syria, which let Turkey invade the area in order to establish a security zone. This resulted in the pro-US Kurds being left to their own devices, but Trump has insisted he would not let Turkey carry out atrocities.
Russian military police arrived in the strategic Syrian city of Kobani on Wednesday as Moscow warned Kurdish YPG forces that they face further armed conflict with Turkey if they fail to withdraw from Syria's entire northeastern border.
Russia's warning came a day after it struck an accord with Turkey calling for the complete pullout of the YPG fighters, which were once US allies but which Ankara calls terrorists.
The police arrival in Kobani marked the start of a period when Russian and Syrian security forces will oversee the removal of YPG fighters at least 30 km (19 miles) into Syria, under the deal struck by presidents Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
A complete pullout of the YPG would mark a victory for Erdoğan, who launched a cross-border offensive on Oct. 9 to drive the Syrian Kurdish militia from the border and create a "safe zone" for the return of Syrian refugees.
Russia's Defence Ministry, quoted by TASS news agency, said the police would help facilitate the YPG withdrawal from Kobani, a border city to the west of Turkey's military operations. It was vacated by US troops after President Donald Trump's abrupt decision this month to pull out.
Kobani is of special significance to the Kurdish fighters, who fought off Islamic State fighters trying to seize the city in 2014-2015 in one of the fiercest battles of Syria's civil war.
Tuesday's accord, which expands on a US-brokered ceasefire deal last week, underlines Putin's dominant influence in Syria and seals the return of his ally President Bashar Assad's forces to the northeast for the first time in years.
Under the deal, Syrian border guards were to deploy there from noon (0900 GMT) on Wednesday.
The Kurdish-led SDF were Washington's main allies in the fight to dismantle Islamic State's self-declared caliphate in Syria.
