ANKARA, October 8. /TASS/. The Grand National Assembly (parliament) of Turkey has voted to prolong the mandate on holding military operations in Syria and Iraq for one more year.

According to the results of the vote, the mandate on Turkish presence in neighboring countries has been prolonged until October 30, 2020.

In accordance with the mandate, the Turkish army can hold military operations outside its territory, in Syria and Iraq. It also allows placing contingents and military bases of states supporting the Turkish military or involved in transborder operations on the territory of Turkey.

On October 1, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced that Ankara planned to create a safety zone east of the Euphrates River in Syria on its own as it had failed to achieve the desired result in talks with the US. The White House pledged following an October 6 telephone conversation between US President Donald Trump and Erdogan that "the United States Armed Forces will not support or be involved in the operation, and United States forces, having defeated the ISIS territorial ‘Caliphate,’ will no longer be in the immediate area." On October 7, Erdogan said that Washington had begun the withdrawal of troops from northeastern Syria, where Turkey planned to carry out an operation to establish a safety zone.

On Monday, Trump wrote on Twitter that "it is time for us to get out of these ridiculous endless wars, many of them tribal, and bring our soldiers home." The White House first announced the decision to pull troops out of Syria on December 19, 2018.