Turkey has agreed to a temporary ceasefire to allow Kurdish-led troops to withdraw from northern Syria.

The country will pause its offensive in the area, overseen by the US, for 120 hours in order to allow for the pullback.

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Russia has stepped up its role in the conflict in Syria by deploying military police to the country’s north.

The Russian units are patrolling a contact line between Syrian and Turkish forces, according to a statement Tuesday by Russia’s Defense Ministry. The line runs along the northwestern borders of the Manbij district.

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Two Turkish soldiers were killed in action on Thursday and Friday amid Turkey’s Operation Peace Spring in northern Syria.

Two fallen soldiers, a specialized sergeant and an infantry private, died amid clashes with the People’s Protection Units (YPG) terrorist group, the National Defense Ministry announced Friday.

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Turkey launched its long-mooted offensive in northeast Syria on Wednesday, defying an international outcry over the threat posed to US-backed Kurdish forces and the campaign against Islamic State.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the operation – code named Peace Spring – would “eliminate the terror threat towards our country” from Kurdish militants and Islamic State jihadis.

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Turkey’s military struck the Syrian-Iraqi border to prevent Kurdish forces using the route to reinforce northeast Syria, as Ankara prepared to attack there following a surprise U.S. troop pullback, Turkish officials told Reuters on Tuesday.

Turkey says it is ready to advance into northeast Syria now that the United States has begun withdrawing troops from the Turkey-Syria frontier in an abrupt policy shift by U.S. President Donald Trump widely criticized in Washington as a betrayal of America’s allies, the Kurds.

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