The US-led coalition will press ahead with the establishment of observation posts to deconflict Turkish and Kurdish forces along the Syrian-Turkish border despite Turkish objections, according to sources with intimate knowledge of coalition planning.
Speaking to Al-Monitor on the condition they not be identified, the sources recalled that Turkey had justified its military buildup along the Syrian border facing territory controlled by Syrian Kurdish forces and its plans to invade on the grounds that the militants known as the People’s Protection Units (YPG) were firing at Turkey “all the time.” The sources asserted that with coalition forces deployed in the border area, they would be in a position to ascertain where the Turks are being shot at and prevent the YPG from doing so. The reality, however, in the words of one of the sources, is that the “YPG is not firing across the border.”