Syrian army deploys near border as Turkey threatens to 'clear terrorists'

Syrian regime forces accompanied by Russian military police deploy in northeast Syria as part of deal agreed with Turkey to halt attacks on Kurdish forces.

QAMISHLI - Syrian troops reached a key area near Turkey's border Saturday after sending further reinforcements to the region, in what a war monitor said was its largest deployment there in years.

Syrian regime forces entered the provincial borders of the town of Ras al-Ain, state news agency SANA said.

The regime forces entered the area, which was taken by Turkish forces following a weeks-long offensive against Syria's Kurds.

Troops also deployed along a road stretching some 30 kilometres south of the frontier, SANA added.

Turkey and its Syrian proxies on October 9 launched a cross-border attack against Kurdish-held areas, grabbing a 120-kilometre-long swathe of Syrian land along the frontier.

The incursion left hundreds dead and caused 300,000 people to flee their homes, in the latest humanitarian crisis in Syria's brutal eight-year war.

This week, Turkey and Russia struck a deal in Sochi for more Kurdish forces to withdraw from the frontier on both sides of that Turkish-held area under the supervision of Russian and Syrian forces.

On Saturday, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said some 2,000 Syrian troops and hundreds of military vehicles were deploying around what Turkey calls its "safe zone".

In the army's "largest deployment" in the area in years, regime forces were being accompanied by Russia military police, the Observatory said.

Moscow has said 300 Russian military police had arrived in Syria to help ensure Kurdish forces withdraw to a line 30 kilometres from the border in keeping with Tuesday's agreement.

Despite Saturday's deployment, the Observatory said that Kurdish fighters and Ankara's Syrian proxies traded artillery fire in the region.

There were no immediate reports of casualties.

Under the Sochi deal, Kurdish forces have until late Tuesday to withdraw from border areas at either end of the Turkish-held area, before joint Turkish-Russian start patrols in a 10-kilometre strip there.

Ankara eventually wants to set up a buffer zone on Syrian soil along the entire length of its 440-kilometre-long border, including to resettle some of the 3.6 million Syrian refugees currently in Turkey.

The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces has objected to some provisions of the Sochi agreement and it has so far maintained several border posts.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned Saturday that Ankara would "clear terrorists" on its border if the Kurdish forces, which his country view as an offshoot of its own banned insurgency, did not withdraw by the deadline.

"If the terrorists are not cleared at the end of the 150 hours, we will take control and clean it ourselves," Erdogan said during a televised speech in Istanbul, referring to the YPG militia viewed as a "terrorist" offshoot of Kurdish insurgents in Turkey.

Despite his threat, Erdogan said Turkey had "to a large extent" reached its goal in terms of setting up a "safe zone" to protect against attacks from the Islamic State (IS) extremist group and the Kurdish YPG militia.

Turkey has repeatedly criticised American support to the YPG, who spearheaded the fight against IS under the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) banner.

For Ankara, the YPG is as dangerous as the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has been waging an insurgency against the Turkish state since 1984.

The PKK is blacklisted as a terror group by Ankara, the US and the European Union.

Erdogan also urged the international community to support Turkey's wish to set up a "safe zone" for some of the 3.6 million Syrian refugees in Turkey.

"If there is no support for the projects we are developing for between one and two million in the first stage for their return, we will have no option but to open our doors, and let them go to Europe," he warned.

After similar threats were accused of being blackmail, Erdogan insisted he was "not blackmailing anyone" but "putting forward a solution".

Earlier this month, Turkey and the US reached an agreement on the YPG's withdrawal from a 120-kilometre zone between Tal Abyad and Ras al-Ain following the Turkish military's operation supporting Syrian proxies against the Kurdish fighters began on October 9.

The US said this had been completed and in return, Ankara agreed to halt its offensive.