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Putin orders ‘significant part’ of Russian forces in Syria to withdraw

Russian President Vladimir Putin (2nd R) and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad (R) visit the Hmeymim air base in Latakia Province, Syria December 11, 2017.

By Andrew Osborn and Andrey Ostroukh

MOSCOW (Reuters) – President Vladimir Putin ordered “a significant part” of Russia’s military contingent in Syria to start withdrawing on Monday, saying Moscow and Damascus had achieved their mission of destroying Islamic State in just over two years.

Putin, who polls show will be re-elected comfortably in March, made the announcement during a surprise visit to Russia’s Hmeymim air base in Syria, where he held talks with President Bashar al-Assad and addressed Russian forces.

The Kremlin first launched air strikes in Syria in September 2015 in its biggest Middle East intervention in decades, turning the tide of the conflict in Assad’s favor, while dramatically increasing Moscow’s own influence in the region.

Syrian state television quoted Assad as thanking Putin for Russia’s help, saying the blood of Moscow’s “martyrs” had been mixed with the blood of the Syrian army.

Russia’s campaign, which has been extensively covered on state TV, has not caught the imagination of most Russians. But nor has it stirred unease of the kind the Soviet Union faced with its calamitous 1980s intervention in Afghanistan.

The use of private military contractors, something which has been documented by Reuters but denied by the defense ministry, has allowed Moscow to keep the public casualty toll fairly low.

Russia’s “mission completed” moment in Syria may help Putin increase the turnout at the March presidential election by appealing to the patriotism of voters.

Though polls show he will easily win, they also show that some Russians are increasingly apathetic about politics, and Putin’s supporters are keen to get him re-elected on a big turnout, which in their eyes confers legitimacy.

‘THE MOTHERLAND AWAITS’

Putin, who has dominated Russia’s political landscape for the last 17 years with the help of state television, told Russian servicemen they would return home as victors.

“The task of fighting armed bandits here in Syria, a task that it was essential to solve with the help of extensive use of armed force, has for the most part been solved, and solved spectacularly,” said Putin.

Wearing a dark suit and speaking in front of a row of servicemen holding Russian flags, Putin said his military had proved its might, that Moscow had succeeded in keeping Syria intact as a “sovereign independent state” and that the conditions had been created for a political solution.

Putin is keen to organize a special event in Russia – the Syrian Congress on National Dialogue – that Moscow hopes will bring together the Syrian government and opposition and try to hammer out a new constitution.

“I congratulate you!” Putin told the servicemen.

“A significant part of the Russian military contingent in the Syrian Arab Republic is returning home, to Russia. The Motherland is waiting for you.”

Putin made clear however that while Russia might be drawing down much of its forces, its military presence in Syria was a permanent one and that it would retain enough firepower to destroy any Islamic State comeback.

Russia will keep its Hmeymim air base in Syria’s Latakia Province and its naval facility in the Syrian Mediterranean port of Tartous “on a permanent basis,” said Putin.

Both bases are protected by sophisticated air defense missile systems.

Separately, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Putin and Turkish counterpart Tayyip Erdogan would discuss a possible political resolution to Syria’s more than six-year-old war when they met later on Monday in Ankara, as well as preparations for the work of the Syrian Congress on National Dialogue.

(Additional reporting by Polina Nikolskaya and Beirut newsroom; Writing by Andrew Osborn; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Turkey expects S-400 defense system from Russia in 2019: minister

ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkey expects to receive its first Russian S-400 surface-to-air missiles in 2019, Defence Minister Nurettin Canikli said on Wednesday, the first time Ankara has given a firm timeline for a deal that has alarmed its NATO allies.

Turkey has been in negotiations with Russia to buy the S-400 for more than a year, a decision seen by Washington and some of its other allies in NATO as a snub to the Western military alliance.

Giving the most detail yet on the deal to parliament’s budget committee, Canikli said it called for delivery of two S-400 systems, but that the second one was optional.

The deal has raised concern among NATO countries in part because the weapons cannot be integrated into the alliance’s defenses. Ankara has said it had no choice but to buy the Russian missiles, because NATO countries did not offer a cost-effective alternative.

“Once these systems are received, our country will have secured an important air defense capability. This solution aimed at meeting an urgent need will not hinder our commitment to developing our own systems,” he said.

Relations between Turkey and Russia deteriorated sharply over years during which they backed opposite sides in the war in neighboring Syria, but have improved markedly over the past year. The countries are now cooperating on Syrian peace efforts.

Canikli said Turkey was also in talks with the Franco-Italian EUROSAM consortium on developing its own missile defense systems, after signing a memorandum to strengthen cooperation between the three countries in defense projects.

“With the memorandum in question, Turkish, French and Italian firms have started cooperation to identify, develop, produce and use a more advanced version of the SAMP-T (missile system) in a common consortium,” he said.

Turkey aimed to bring talks with EUROSAM to a “definitive end” soon, he said, adding that Ankara aimed to finalize the deal by the end of 2017 at the latest.

Turkey has been working to develop its own defense systems and equipment, and has lined up several projects for the coming years, including combat helicopters, tanks, drones and more.

Canikli said Turkey received bids last Friday for the production of 500 Altay battle tanks, of which 250 are optional.

Shares of Turkish commercial and military vehicle producer Otokar rose almost 3 percent following the news about the 7 billion euro ($8.24 billion) domestic tank project.

(Reporting by Gulsen Solaker; Writing by Tuvan Gumrukcu; Editing by Daren Butler and Peter Graff)

Zarrab trial in U.S. is a ‘clear plot against Turkey’, government says

Turkish gold trader Reza Zarrab (2nd R) sits with lawyers Erich Ferrari (L), Marc Agnifilo, and Benjamin Brafman (R) as he appears in Manhattan federal court in New York, U.S., April 24, 2017.

ANKARA (Reuters) – A U.S. court case against a wealthy Turkish gold trader is a “clear plot against Turkey” that lacks any legal basis, Ankara’s government spokesman said on Monday, ratcheting up rhetoric ahead of a trial that has strained diplomatic relations.

Bekir Bozdag also told a news conference that the U.S. case was aimed at harming economic relations between Turkey, Iran and Russia. He said U.S. authorities were putting pressure on defendants, including the gold trader Reza Zarrab, to make accusations against Turkey.

“The Zarrab case is a clear plot against Turkey, a political case and lacking any legal basis,” Bozdag told a news conference following a cabinet meeting.

“The Zarrab case aims to damage Turkey’s ties with Iran, Russia and other countries. Those who are carrying out the Zarrab case through defendants are very clearly using pressure… They are forcing them to (make) accusations that are against Turkey.”

Zarrab, together with alleged co-conspirators, has been charged with handling hundreds of millions of dollars for Iran’s government and Iranian entities from 2010 to 2015, in a scheme to avoid U.S. sanctions on Iran. He has pleaded not guilty and is due to go on trial in New York on Nov. 27.

Ankara says the case is based on fabricated documents. Turkish authorities opened an investigation into the U.S. prosecutors who brought charges against Zarrab, state media said on Saturday, citing the allegations that it was based on fabricated documents.

Under a previous Turkish investigation that became public in 2013, Turkish prosecutors accused Zarrab and high-ranking Turkish officials of involvement in facilitating Iranian money transfers via gold smuggling, leaked documents at the time showed.

President Tayyip Erdogan, then prime minister, cast that investigation as a coup attempt orchestrated by his political enemies. Several Turkish prosecutors were removed from the case, police investigators were reassigned, and the investigation was later dropped.

Erdogan, who has not been accused of any wrongdoing, has said U.S. prosecutors have shown “ulterior motives” by including references to him and his wife in court papers relating to the trial in New York.

(Reporting by Orhan Coskun, Ezgi Erkoyun and Tuvan Gumrukcu; Writing by David Dolan; Editing by Dominic Evans)

Strong earthquake hits Iraq and Iran, killing more than 300

Residents look at a damaged building following an earthquake in the town of Darbandikhan, near the city of Sulaimaniyah, in the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region, Iraq November 13, 2017

By Parisa Hafezi and Raya Jalabi

ANKARA/BAGHDAD (Reuters) – More than 300 people were killed in Iran when a magnitude 7.3 earthquake jolted the country on Sunday, state media said, and rescuers were searching for dozens trapped under rubble in the mountainous area. At least six have died in Iraq as well.

State television said more than 348 people were killed in Iran and at least 6,600 were injured. Local officials said the death toll would rise as search and rescue teams reached remote areas of Iran.

The earthquake was felt in several western provinces of Iran, but the hardest hit province was Kermanshah, which announced three days of mourning. More than 300 of the victims were in Sarpol-e Zahab county in Kermanshah province, about 15 km (10 miles) from the Iraq border.

Iranian state television said the quake had caused heavy damage in some villages where houses were made of earthen bricks. Rescuers were laboring to find survivors trapped under collapsed buildings.

Iranian media reported that a woman and her baby were pulled out alive from the rubble on Monday in Sarpol-e Zahab, the worst hit area with a population of 85,000.

The quake also triggered landslides that hindered rescue efforts, officials told state television. At least 14 provinces in Iran had been affected, Iranian media reported.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei offered his condolences on Monday, urging all government agencies to do all they could to help those affected.

Collapsed building is seen in the town of Darbandikhan, east of the city of Sulaimaniyah, in the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region, Iraq, November 13, 2017. REUTERS/Ako Rasheed

ANGRY PEOPLE

The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake measured magnitude 7.3. An Iraqi meteorology official put its magnitude at 6.5, with the epicenter in Penjwin in Sulaimaniyah province in the Kurdistan region, close to the main border crossing with Iran.

Tempers frayed in the quake-hit area as the search went on for survivors amidst twisted rubble of collapsed buildings. State TV aired footage of disfigured buildings, vehicles under rubble and wounded people wrapped in blankets.

“We need a shelter … ” a middle-aged man in Sarpol-e Zahab told state TV. “Where is the aid? Where is the help?” His family could not spend another night outside in cold weather, he said.

Kurdish health officials said at least six people were killed in Iraq and at least 68 injured. Iraq’s health and local officials said the worst-hit area was Darbandikham district, near the border with Iran, where at least 10 houses had collapsed and the district’s only hospital was severely damaged.

“The situation there is very critical,” Kurdish Health Minister Rekawt Hama Rasheed told Reuters.

The district’s main hospital was severely damaged and had no power, Rasheed said, so the injured were taken to Sulaimaniyah for treatment. Homes and buildings had extensive structural damage, he said.

The quake was felt as far south as Baghdad, where many residents rushed from their houses and tall buildings when tremors shook the Iraqi capital.

“I was sitting with my kids having dinner and suddenly the building was just dancing in the air,” said Majida Ameer, who ran out of her building in the capital’s Salihiya district with her three children.

“I thought at first that it was a huge bomb. But then I heard everyone around me screaming: ‘Earthquake!'”

Similar scenes unfolded in Erbil, the capital of the Kurdistan Region, and across other cities in northern Iraq, close to the quake’s epicenter.

Iraq’s meteorology center advised people to stay away from buildings and not to use elevators in case of aftershocks.

A woman reacts next to a dead body following an earthquake in Sarpol-e Zahab county in Kermanshah, Iran November 13, 2017. Tasnim News Agency/Handout via REUTERS

NO SHELTER

Electricity and water was cut off in several Iranian and Iraqi cities, and fears of aftershocks sent thousands of people in both countries out onto the streets and parks in cold weather.

Across the area, thousands of rescue workers and special teams using sniffer dogs and heat sensors searched wreckage. Blocked roads made it hard for rescue workers to reach some remote villages.

Iranian authorities acknowledged the relief effort was still slow and patchy. The Iranian seismological center registered around 153 aftershocks and said more were expected. More than 70,000 people needed emergency shelter, the head of Iranian Red Crescent said.

Hojjat Gharibian was one of hundreds of homeless Iranian survivors, who was huddled against the cold with his family in Qasr-e Shirin.

“My two children were sleeping when the house started to collapse because of the quake. I took them and ran to the street. We spent hours in the street until aid workers moved us into a school building,” Gharibian told Reuters by telephone.

Iran’s police, the elite Revolutionary Guards and its affiliated Basij militia forces were dispatched to the quake-hit areas overnight, state TV reported. President Hassan Rouhani is expected to visit the Kermanshah province, TV reported.

Iran sits astride major fault lines and is prone to frequent tremors. A magnitude 6.6 quake on Dec. 26, 2003, devastated the historic city of Bam, 1,000 km southeast of Tehran, killing about 31,000 people.

An Iranian oil official said pipelines and refineries in the area remained intact.

TURKEY AND ISRAEL

Residents of Turkey’s southeastern city of Diyarbakir also reported feeling a strong tremor, but there were no immediate reports of damage or casualties there.

Turkish Red Crescent Chairman Kerem Kinik told broadcaster NTV that Red Crescent teams in Erbil were preparing to go to the site of the earthquake and that Turkey’s national disaster management agency, AFAD, and National Medical Rescue Teams were also preparing to head into Iraq.

AFAD’s chairman said the organization was waiting for a reply to its offer for help.

In a tweet, Kinik said the Turkish Red Crescent was gathering 3,000 tents and heaters, 10,000 beds and blankets and moving them toward the Iraqi border.

“We are coordinating with Iranian and Iraqi Red Crescent groups. We are also getting prepared to make deliveries from our northern Iraq Erbil depot,” he said.

Israeli media said the quake was felt in many parts of Israel as well. In a statement, Israeli Intelligence Minister Israel Katz said, “My condolences to the people of Iran and Iraq over the loss of human life caused by the earthquake.” Iran refuses to recognize Israel.

(Writing by Parisa Hafezi, reporting by Raya Jalabi and Ahmed Rasheed in Iraq, Bozorgmeh Sharafedin in Londn, Tuvan Gumrukcu and Irem Koca in Ankara, Dan Williams in Jerusalem, and Dubai newsroom; Editing by Peter Cooney, Bill Tarrant, Larry King)

Ankara mayor quits in Erdogan purge of local government

Turkey's ruling AK Party (AKP) mayoral candidate and current Ankara Mayor Melih Gokcek (C) attends an event as part of his election campaign in Ankara March 18, 2014. REUTERS/Umit Bektas

ANKARA (Reuters) – The mayor of Ankara said on Monday he will step down this week, the fifth mayor from the ruling party to quit in recent weeks in the face of demands for a purge of local politics by President Tayyip Erdogan.

Melih Gokcek, a staunch Erdogan loyalist who has been mayor of Ankara for 23 years and won five consecutive elections, said on Twitter on Monday that he would leave office on Saturday, after meeting with Erdogan at the presidential palace.

Four other mayors from the ruling party have already stepped down in recent weeks, including Istanbul’s Mayor Kadir Topbas, following demands that they resign from Erdogan, who says he is seeking a renewal of his ruling AK Party.

“Three mayors from our party have handed in their resignations so far, and there are three more. I believe they will hand theirs in as soon as possible,” Erdogan told a news conference in Ankara last week before Gokcek and one other mayor resigned.

Erdogan decision to target the mayors follows his narrow victory in a referendum to grant himself sweeping powers last year, which was more popular with rural than urban voters. Seventeen of the country’s 30 largest cities voted against it.

Since then, Erdogan has spoken of the need for renewal in local government and the ruling AK Party, citing signs of “metal fatigue” within administrations.

Gokcek, generally regarded as a staunch Erdogan loyalist, is well known in Turkey for tweets in which he has engaged in spats with journalists and with other senior members of the AKP.

In February he suggested the U.S.-based cleric blamed by Erdogan for a failed coup last year might be plotting an earthquake, with the help of foreign powers.

(Writing by Ece Toksabay; editing by Peter Graff)

Turkey orders detention of 100 former police officers in post-coup probe: Anadolu

ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkish authorities issued detention warrants on Saturday for 100 former police officers and have so far detained 63 of them, the state-run Anadolu news agency said, as part of a widening crackdown since last year’s failed coup attempt.

The suspects were believed to be users of ByLock, an encrypted messaging app which the government says was used by the network of U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, accused by Ankara of orchestrating last July’s abortive putsch.

Gulen, who has lived in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania since 1999, denies involvement.

Anadolu said security forces were seeking the suspects in 19 provinces across the country.

Since the abortive coup, more than 50,000 people have been jailed pending trial over alleged links to Gulen, while 150,000 people have been sacked or suspended from jobs in the military, public and private sectors.

Rights groups and some of Turkey’s Western allies have voiced concern about the crackdown, fearing the government is using the coup as a pretext to quash dissent.

The government says only such a purge could neutralize the threat represented by Gulen’s network, which it says deeply infiltrated institutions such as the army, schools and courts.

(Reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu; Editing by Adrian Croft)

U.S. still seeking explanation for arrest of staff in Turkey: ambassador

U.S. Ambassador to Turkey John Bass speaks during a meeting with media members in Ankara, Tukey, October 11, 2017. REUTERS/Stringer

By Tulay Karadeniz and Gulsen Solaker

ANKARA (Reuters) – The United States is still seeking an explanation from Ankara for the detention of staff at U.S. missions in Turkey which led Washington to stop issuing visas and triggered a diplomatic crisis, the U.S. ambassador said on Wednesday.

Ambassador John Bass said the decision to suspend granting visas was not taken lightly, but the detentions indicated a breakdown in communication between the two NATO allies, whose relations have come under increasing strain.

“Unfortunately… the U.S. government still has not received any official communications from the Turkish government about the reasons why our local employees have been detained or arrested,” he told reporters at the U.S. embassy in Ankara.

Washington says two locally employed staff were arrested in Turkey this year. In May, a translator at the consulate in the southern province of Adana was arrested and last week a Drug Enforcement Administration worker was detained in Istanbul.

President Tayyip Erdogan’s spokesman said last week the Istanbul employee, Metin Topuz, had been in contact with a leading suspect in last year’s failed military coup. Turkish media reported similar accusations against the translator.

“The notion that people in our employment are facing or are under suspicion of terrorism charges here, that is a very serious allegation,” Bass said. “It is one we want to take seriously and we want to better understand the ostensible evidence that supports these allegations”.

Since the failed military coup in July last year, in which at least 240 people were killed, more than 50,000 people have been detained and 150,000, including teachers, academics, soldiers and journalists, have been suspended from work.

Some Western allies fear the crackdown shows the country is slipping ever deeper into authoritarian rule under Erdogan.

Ankara says its critics fail to understand the scale of the security challenges in Turkey, which has also faced conflict on its southern borders with Iraq and Syria, and an insurgency in its mainly Kurdish southeast.

ENVOY TARGETED

Erdogan has blamed Bass for the latest dispute, suggesting he acted unilaterally in suspending visa services and declaring that his government no longer considered Bass to be Washington’s envoy and would not hold meetings with him.

The U.S. State Department denied Bass acted alone, saying his actions were coordinated with officials in Washington.

In a sign that Ankara was stepping back from the pledge to exclude Bass, Turkish television channels reported that he met a foreign ministry official later on Wednesday. The ambassador is due to leave Turkey within days to take up a post in Afghanistan.

U.S.-Turkish tensions have risen in recent months over U.S. military support for Kurdish YPG fighters in Syria, considered by Ankara to be an extension of the banned PKK which has waged an insurgency for three decades in southeast Turkey.

Turkey has also pressed, so far in vain, for the United States to extradite Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, a former ally of Erdogan who is viewed in Ankara as the mastermind behind the failed coup.

Another source of friction was the U.S. indictment of Turkey’s former economy minister Zafer Caglayan for conspiring to violate U.S. sanctions on Iran. A U.S. court also indicted 15 of Erdogan’s guards after they clashed with protesters during his visit to Washington in May.

In addition to the two detained consulate workers, Turkey is holding a U.S. pastor on charges which Turkish media say include membership of Gulen’s network. Bass called for the release of the Christian missionary, Andrew Brunson, saying he had seen nothing of merit in the charges against him.

He denied reports that Turkish police were trying to speak to another consulate employee. “To the best of our knowledge there are not any outstanding requests from Turkish law enforcement officials for any of our local staff to come in and talk to them,” he said.

(Reporting by Tulay Karadeniz and Gulsen Solaker; Writing by Daren Butler; Editing by Dominic Evans and Hugh Lawson)

‘You belong here’ Germany tells Turks as row with Ankara rages

German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel addresses a news conference in Berlin, Germany, July 20, 2017. REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch

By Thomas Escritt and Michelle Martin

BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany sought on Saturday to reassure the country’s three million people of Turkish descent it would stand by them as a row with Ankara escalates, saying they were not the target of changes to government policy on Turkey.

In a letter published in German and Turkish in daily newspaper Bild, Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said Germany had no quarrel with Turkish people in either country but could not stand by as “innocent” German citizens were jailed.

On Friday, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble compared Turkey’s detention of six rights activists, including a German, to the authoritarian former communist East Germany.

“However difficult the political relations between Germany and Turkey, one thing is clear: you, people of Turkish roots in Germany, belong here with us, whether you have a German passport or not,” Gabriel wrote in Saturday’s open letter.

“We have always striven for good relations with Turkey, because we know that good relations are important for you (German Turks),” he added.

He said Germany would review cooperation and especially economic aid for the fellow NATO member and campaign for Europe to take a clear position on Ankara.

Gokay Sofuoglu, chairman of the Turkish Community in Germany, welcomed Gabriel’s conciliatory words.

“We must not let ourselves be driven apart here in Germany. People with Turkish roots need to focus on Germany,” he told Welt am Sonntag newspaper.

‘UNACCEPTABLE AND UNBEARABLE’

Bilateral tensions were already high before the activists’ arrests after recriminations during an April referendum on extending President Tayyip Erdogan’s powers and a pullout of German troops from a Turkish air base that began this month.

The arrests are part of a sweeping crackdown across Turkish society since a failed coup against Erdogan last year.

German officials are also increasingly concerned at what they say is large-scale covert activity by Ankara’s security services among Germany’s Turkish diaspora.

Germany’s head of domestic intelligence said on Friday Turkish agencies were carrying out influence operations in Germany, including targeting opponents of Erdogan.

Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Bavarian ally, Horst Seehofer, told Welt am Sonntag the financial aid Turkey receives as part of the European Union accession procedures should be cut off.

Seehofer, leader of the Christian Social Union (CSU) that has long been skeptical about Turkey joining the EU, said the idea of the country becoming a full member was “well and truly over” and developments there were “unacceptable and unbearable”.

Germany has warned citizens who travel to Turkey they do so at their own risk and on Saturday the radical Left party urged the government to stop deportations in view of the arrest of government opponents.

“If the German Foreign Ministry warns against going on holiday in Turkey, then there needs to be an end to deportations of Turkish citizens,” party co-leader Bernd Riexinger told Die Welt newspaper.

(Editing by John Stonestreet and Helen Popper)

Turkey warns on Syrian Kurdish militia, welcomes U.S. weapons pledge

FILE PHOTO: Turkey's Defence Minister Fikri Isik answers a question during an interview with Reuters in Ankara, Turkey, August 5, 2016. REUTERS/Tumay Berkin

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Turkey’s defense minister warned on Friday that Ankara would retaliate against any threatening moves by the Kurdish YPG militia in Syria and welcomed a U.S. pledge to take back weapons from the group after the defeat of Islamic State.

Washington sees the YPG as an essential ally in the campaign to defeat Islamic State in its Raqqa stronghold. Ankara considers it a terrorist group tied to militants who have fought an insurgency in southeast Turkey since the mid-1980s.

Turkish Defense Minister Fikri Isik told broadcaster NTV a letter sent to him by U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis regarding the weapons given to the YPG was a “positive step” but “implementation is essential”.

Turkey has said supplies to the YPG have in the past ended up in PKK hands, describing any weapon given to them as a threat to its security. Isik warned of retaliation for any action by the Syrian militia.

“Any move by the YPG toward Turkey will be answered immediately,” the minister said.

“Threats that might emerge after the Raqqa operation are already being evaluated. We will implement steps that will completely secure the border,” he added. “It is Turkey’s right to eliminate terror threats across its borders”.

The fight for Raqqa began two weeks ago, putting pressure on Islamic State, which also faces defeat in its Iraqi stronghold, Mosul.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Wednesday Turkey had sent reinforcements, including troops, vehicles and equipment into Syria, toward areas south of Azaz town, which is held by Turkish-backed Syrian rebels. The YPG controls areas south of Azaz.

A rebel from a Turkish-backed group has also said Turkey sent in more forces but there has been no confirmation from officials in Ankara.

Turkey opened an offensive in northern Syria in August last year, sending tanks and warplanes across the border to support Syrian rebels fighting both Islamic State and the YPG.

It helped them carve out a big portion of northern Syria, helping ensure the YPG and its allies could not link the 400-km (250-mile) stretch of territory they hold in the north and northeast with the pocket they hold west of Azaz.

(Reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu and Can Sezer; Writing by Daren Butler; Editing by Dominic Evans, Larry King)

Germany says will avoid escalation of Turkey row during troop pullout

German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel and his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu attend a news conference in Ankara, Turkey, June 5, 2017. REUTERS/Umit Bektas

BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany’s foreign minister said on Tuesday he would try to avoid damaging already strained relations with NATO partner Turkey during a withdrawal of German troops, as he didn’t want a mounting dispute to push Ankara into closer ties with Moscow.

Sigmar Gabriel said his officials would do their best not to escalate the situation as German troops left the Incirlik air base in southern Turkey – in reaction to Ankara’s decision to restrict German lawmakers’ access to the soldiers.

“Above all we should organize the withdrawal so that there is no megaphone diplomacy where we trade insults,” Gabriel told Deutschlandfunk radio.

He said he had agreed with Chancellor Angela Merkel and Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen that the German cabinet would deal with the issue on Wednesday. He also said the defense ministry had already been working on a withdrawal plan.

Turkey’s ties with Germany and other European Union states deteriorated sharply in the run-up to Turkey’s April 16 referendum that handed President Tayyip Erdogan stronger presidential powers.

Germany, citing security concerns, banned some Turkish politicians from addressing rallies of expatriate Turks before the referendum. Ankara responded by accusing Berlin of “Nazi-like” tactics, drawing rebukes from Berlin.

Turkey has reignited a row over access to German forces on its territory by imposing new restrictions on German lawmakers visiting Incirlik.

The German deployment at Incirlik is part of a mission providing reconnaissance aircraft to support U.S.-led coalition operations against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

Gabriel said the defense ministry had concluded it now made more sense logistically to send Germany’s Tornado jets to Jordan.

“We have no interest in pushing Turkey into a corner … we don’t want to push it towards Russia,” Gabriel said. “This is no small thing but it is about more than Incirlik, it’s about our relationship with Turkey,” he said.

Turkey has been seeking to improve relations with Russia. Last month it agreed plans with Moscow and Tehran to reduce the fighting in Syria, and has been working to end economic barriers imposed after Turkey shot down a Russian plane near the Syrian border in 2015.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said after meeting Gabriel in Ankara on Monday that relations with Germany had suffered recently, but that trade and investment between the two countries were still strong.

“We spoke about how we can focus on this more, what steps could be taken to increase contact between the two nations and disperse this negative atmosphere,” he said.

Berlin is also worried about a security crackdown in Turkey after last year’s failed coup. Some 150,000 people have been sacked or suspended from their jobs and 50,000 people jailed pending trial.

“Turkey wants an expansion of the customs union. We say we are ready for that … but you have to move, too,” said Gabriel, who stressed that adhering to the rule of law was necessary.

Germany has also pushed for the release of German-Turkish journalist Deniz Yucel, who was arrested in Turkey in February on a charge of spreading terrorist propaganda.

(Reporting by Madeline Chambers; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

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