ANKARA, Nov. 16 (Xinhua) -- Turkish and Russian troops held the seventh round of joint patrol in northern Syria under a deal reached last month for withdrawal of Syrian Kurdish fighters, said Turkey's Defense Ministry on Saturday.
"Turkish and Russian units with participation of UAVs have completed their seventh joint land patrol as planned. The joint patrol in the Qamishli-Derik sector was accompanied by UAVs and was conducted with four land vehicles each side," said a written statement by the ministry.
Together with air support from helicopters, the units patrolled an area of 26 km in length and 10 km in depth, read the statement.
The patrols are part of a memorandum between Ankara and Moscow to remove fighters of the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) 30 km from the Turkish border.
Ankara sees the YPG as the Syrian offshoot of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party.
On Oct. 9, Turkey launched a military incursion, named Operation Peace Spring, into northern Syria in a bid to drive Kurdish fighters out of the border region, following the pullout of U.S. troops.
The U.S. reached a deal with Turkey on Oct. 17, imposing a five-day cease-fire to allow the Kurdish forces to pull back from the planned "safe zone" which Turkey wants to create in northern Syria to ensure its border security.
On Oct. 22, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin held a meeting in Sochi, Russia, agreeing on the pullout of the YPG fighters to 30 km south of Turkey's border within 150 hours and the launch of joint patrols between Turkish and Russian soldiers 10 km from the Turkish border in an agreed region that excludes the city of Qamishli.
