ANKARA: Turkish officials said on Thursday that US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis had written to his Turkish counterpart, reassuring him that arms provided to Syrian Kurdish fighters would be taken back once the militant Islamic State group was ousted from its stronghold in Syria, the city of Raqqa.

Turkish defense ministry officials said in a statement that Mattis also reassured Defense Minister Fikri Isik that the United States would regularly provide Turkey with a list of arms provided to the fighters while US military advisers on the field would ensure that the arms don’t go outside the battle zones in Syria.

A US decision to launch an offensive to capture Raqqa in partnership with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces has complicated relations with Ankara, which views the group’s Kurdish fighters as an extension of an insurgent Kurdish group operating in Turkey.

Ankara fears arms provided to the Kurdish fighters will end up in the hands of the insurgents in Turkey and has threatened to respond to threats.

The officials said Jim Mattis told Isik in the letter that 80 percent of the force which would capture Raqqa would be made up of Arabs and that an Arab force would hold the city.

If confirmed, Mattis’s statement on the weapons being taken back once the Raqqa fight is over conflicts with recent comments made by officials of the US-led coalition against IS.

The coalition’s spokesman at the time, Colonel John Dorrian, said last month that the weapons supplied to the Kurds will not be reclaimed by the US after the specific missions are completed, but that the US will “carefully monitor” where and how they are used.

In Russia, a senior lawmaker said Moscow was negotiating with two Central Asian nations about sending their troops to monitor a ceasefire in some areas of Syria.

State-owned RIA Novosti news agency quoted Vladimir Shamanov, head of the defence committee at the State Duma, as saying that that Russia had asked Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, two former Soviet republics, to send their troops to Syria, where Russia is backing President Bashar Assad. Shamanov said no firm decision had been made yet.

Russia’s envoy to Syria earlier said Russia and Iran would send their troops to monitor “de-escalation zones” in Syria and that other countries might join them there.

Published in Dawn, June 23rd, 2017