THE US will take back the arms it has given Kurdish separatists once they take the Syrian Isis stronghold of Raqqa, according to a Turkish Defence Ministry statement yesterday.

It said Defence Minister Fikri Isik had received the assurances in a letter from his US counterpart James Mattis.

It said Mr Mattis pledged to provide Ankara with a full list of arms supplied to the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), dominated by the Kurdish YPG — a sister organisation to Turkey’s banned PKK.

And he said US military “advisers” embedded in the the SDF without the Syrian government’s permission would ensure the weapons stay in Syria and not find their way to PKK guerillas in Turkey or Iraq.

Mr Mattis also claimed Arab elements in the SDF — factions of the so-called Free Syrian Army (FSA) — would make up 80 per cent of the force taking Raqqa and would then occupy it.

The US has used its FSA proxies in the country’s south to prevent the Syrian army liberating the country’s east — under the pretext of fighting Isis.

On Monday a US fighter shot down a Syrian attack plane supporting an army offensive to cut off the Isis escape route south of Raqqa, claiming it  had bombed “near” SDF forces.

The same day pro-Kurdish former US ambassador to Syria Robert Ford said the Pentagon was exploiting the YPG and would eventually betray them.

“Syrian Kurds are making their biggest mistake in trusting the Americans,” he said.

Meanwhile French President Emmanuel Macron admitted regime change against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government — the goal of the six-year Western-backed war — was dead.

In an interview with eight European newspapers, published yesterday he said he could not make Mr Assad’s departure “a precondition for everything because nobody has shown me a legitimate successor.”

The comments followed Tuesday’s meeting between French Foreign Minister Yves le Drian and Russia’s Sergey Lavrov, where they agreed to fight terrorist groups in Syria while seeking a political solution to the war.

Unconfirmed reports said yesterday that a local amnesty deal had tentatively been reached between the Syrian government and rebel fighters in the southern city of Daraa.

Lebanon’s al-Mayadeen TV reported that FSA factions would withdraw from the south of the city if army troops pull out of the north — to be replaced with police.

Under what is potentially the biggest agreement of its kind so far, militants would be granted amnesty of transported with their families to the al-Qaida-occupied north-western province of Idlib.

international@peoples-press.com