ANKARA, Nov. 20 (Xinhua) -- Turkish and Russian troops held the ninth round of joint land patrol on Wednesday in northern Syria under a deal reached last month for withdrawal of Syrian Kurdish fighters, said Turkish Defense Ministry.
"The ninth joint land patrol between Turkish and Russian units ... has been completed in the eastern Euphrates in accordance with the plan," the ministry said in a written statement.
"A total of eight vehicles comprising of four from each side participated in the ninth join land patrol along with UAVs in the Ras al-Ayn to Qamishli area," it added.
Turkish and Russian units patrolled an area of 38km in length and 9 km in depth, according to the ministry.
The patrols are part of a memorandum between Ankara and Washington to remove fighters of the 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 in Turkey.
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.
They agreed 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.
Yet, Ankara is critical of the U.S. and Russia for not reaching the full pullout of the YPG forces.
"Neither Russia nor the United States has been able to clean (northern Syria) of terrorist organizations within the time they promised," Erdogan told reporters on Nov. 12 before departing for Washington.
