The Syrian Foreign Ministry accused Turkey of having been violating a 1998 agreement between Ankara and Damascus since 2011 by supporting what it called terrorism and by occupying Syrian territory, Sputnik English reported on Saturday.
The Adana Agreement signed in 1998 has been at the centre of debates on Syria this week, since Russian President Vladimir Putin mentioned the accord as a tool to remove Turkey’s security concerns in Syria during a joint conference with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Wednesday in Moscow.
On his way to Turkey, Erdoğan told reporters that Putin mentioned the agreement as it justified Turkey’s military operations inside Syrian territory.
In the Adana agreement, the Syrian government pledged to prohibit on Syrian soil the activities of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has been fighting for Kurdish self-rule in Turkey since 1984.
The agreement, which is not active since 2011, allows Ankara to use force against the PKK in Syria, should the Syrian government be incapable of fulfilling its promise.
Turkey sees the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) in Syria as an extension of the PKK and announced in November plans to launch a large scale operation against YPG-controlled zones in northeastern Syria.
Ankara also has plans to establish a 20-mile deep safe zone in northern Syria and has been negotiating the idea with both the United States and Russia.
"Syria confirms that it is in compliance with the Adana Interstate Agreement on Combating Terrorism in all its forms and all agreements related to it, but the Turkish regime has been violating the agreement since 2011 up to now by sponsoring and supporting terrorism, training militants and making it easier for them to go to Syrian Arab Republic, or through the occupation of Syrian territories with terrorist groups it controls it or directly with the help of the Turkish Armed Forces," Syrian state television quoted a source in the ministry as saying, Sputnik reported.
The ministry called on Ankara to activate the 1998 agreement, leaving the control of the boundary territories to Damascus as they were before the beginning of the war in 2011, Sputnik said.
Erdoğan said on Friday that Ankara could not wait forever to set up safe zone east of the Euphrates River, adding that Turkish government was closed to all solution proposals other than this.