SOCHI. Oct 23 (Interfax) - Much work has to be done in terms of the withdrawal of Kurdish units, and it is expected that Syrian border guards and Russian military police will be deployed, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said.
"We have to do a lot of work. We discussed various options, including the option of deploying Syrian governmental troops to the territories. We decided that [Syrian] border troops together with Russian military police will enter there," Shoigu told journalists in Sochi.
Asked whether there will be joint patrolling along the whole Syrian-Turkish border, Shoigu said, "No, this is not the whole border. This is a portion from the Euphrates to Tell Abyad and further to the border with Iraq, including the portion that borders with Iraq, not Turley."
In turn, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said, "the Russian Federation represented by military police together with Turkish units effectively one week after the memorandum takes effect at noon tomorrow will be patrolling this territory, and armed units of the so-called Kurdish self-defense units will be withdrawn 30 kilometers away from this territory, and 10 kilometers of this strip will be the territory that will be jointly patrolled by Russia and Turkey."
The most important result of the Russian-Turkish memorandum is that it confirms the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Syria and adherence to countering any separatist tendencies there, he said.
"Thirdly, the way we decided to act together with the Syrian government - and Russia will be actively tackling this - rests on the Adana agreement between Syria and Turkey that starting from 1998 has been directly aimed at ensuring the security of the joint Syrian-Turkish border," Lavrov said.