ALEPPO, Syria: The United States on Saturday urged the Syrian government and Kurdish authorities to return to negotiations after days of deadly clashes in the northern city of Aleppo.
Conflicting reports emerged from the city, as authorities announced a halt to the fighting and said they began transferring Kurdish fighters out of Aleppo, but Kurdish forces denied the claims shortly after.
An AFP correspondent saw at least five buses on Saturday carrying men leaving the Kurdish-majority Sheikh Maqsud district accompanied by security forces, with authorities saying they were fighters though Kurdish forces insisted they were “civilians who were forcibly displaced”. AFP could not independently verify the men’s identities.
Another correspondent saw at least six buses entering the neighbourhood and leaving without anyone on board, with relative calm in the area.
It came as US envoy Tom Barrack on Saturday met with Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, and afterwards issued a call for a “return to dialogue” with the Kurds in accordance with an integration agreement sealed last year.
The violence in Aleppo erupted after efforts to integrate the Kurds’ de facto autonomous administration and military into the country’s new government stalled.
Since the fighting began on Tuesday, at least 21 civilians have been killed, according to figures from both sides, while Aleppo’s governor said 155,000 people have been displaced.
On Saturday evening, state television reported that Kurdish fighters “who announced their surrender... were transported by bus to the city of Tabaqa” in the Kurdish-controlled northeast.
In a statement to the official SANA news agency, the military announced earlier on Saturday “a halt to all military operations in the Sheikh Maqsud neighbourhood”.
A Syrian security source had told AFP that the last Kurdish fighters had entrenched themselves in the area of al-Razi hospital in Sheikh Maqsud, before being evacuated by the authorities.
