Russia has informed Turkey that Syrian Kurdish YPG fighters have withdrawn from a strip of land near the Syrian-Turkish border within a deadline set by Ankara and Moscow, President Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday. Under an accord clinched by Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin a week ago, Syrian border guards and Russian military police were meant to clear all YPG forces and their weapons from a 30 km (19 mile) “safe zone” south of the border by 6 pm local time (1500 GMT) on Tuesday. In the next phase of the plan, Russian and Turkish forces are due to conduct joint patrols of a narrower, 10 km strip of land on the Syrian side of the border. Bilateral talks on how those patrols will work are […]