ANKARA, October 28. /TASS/. Russian and Turkish military officials met in Ankara on Monday to discuss joint plans in Syria under agreements reached during earlier talks between the leaders of the two states, the Turkish Ministry of National Defense said in a statement.

According to the document, Monday was "the first day of negotiations with the Russian military delegation that arrived in Ankara to lay down a plan of actions to be taken under the agreement with Russia, reached in Sochi on October 22, 2019."

"The talks will continue tomorrow," the ministry said.

On October 9, Turkey launched a military incursion into northern Syria, codenaming it Operation Peace Spring, with the Turkish Armed Forces and the Ankara-backed Free Syrian Army carrying it out. The Erdogan government claimed that its goal is to clear the border area of what it calls ‘terrorists’ (Turkey’s broad label of the Kurdish forces) and establish a 30 km-long buffer zone in Syria’s north, where over 3 million Syrian refugees in Turkey would resettle. Ankara’s incursion into Syria has triggered an outcry in the region and across the world.

On October 22, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan signed a memorandum on joint actions in northeastern Syria. According to the document, as of noon October 23, Russian military police and Syrian border guards have started to monitor the withdrawal of Kurdish military formations to the depth of 30 km from the border. Russia and Turkey will begin the joint patrolling of the area 150 hours later.