Turkey’s Erdogan calls on Putin to establish Syrian corridor

By ANDREW WILKS
Associated Press

ISTANBUL (AP) — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has called for a 30-kilometer (19-mile) security corridor on Turkey’s border with Syria in a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Referring to Kurdish militants that Ankara considers terrorists, Erdogan reiterated the “importance and urgency” of creating the corridor in northern Syria in accordance with a 2019 agreement between Turkey and Russia, his office said Sunday. The call came three weeks after Turkey launched air and artillery strikes in Syria and Iraq in response to a bomb attack in Istanbul on Nov. 13 that killed six people and wounded dozens. Erdogan has threatened to follow up strikes on northern Syria with a ground offensive.