Following the agreement, the powerful Syrian Kurdish militia, which has so antagonised Ankara, agreed to withdraw from the town on Turkey's southern border.
The Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) said in a statement it had decided to pull a final group of its military advisers out of Manbij, two years after leading a victorious offensive to rid the town of ISIS.
The road map, long sought by Turkey, comes at a time of strain in bilateral ties over wider Syria policy and over Washington's decision in December to move its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.
Turkey has been infuriated by US support for the Kurdish YPG militia, which it views as a terrorist organisation, and has threatened to push its offensive in the Afrin region of northern Syria further east to Manbij - risking confrontation with US troops stationed there. Washington views the YPG as a key ally in the fight against ISIS.
At their talks in Washington, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also discussed co-operation in Syria, along with potential steps to improve security in Manbij, they said in a statement.
"They endorsed a road map to this end," the statement said.
The Pentagon has long feared that Manbij could become a flashpoint in Syria, with US-backed forces who cleared the city of ISIS fighters clashing with Turkish forces. That would put Washington in the unenviable position of either fighting a Nato ally or abandoning its proxy forces in Syria.
The statement did not explicitly spell out how Turkey and the US would resolve the Manbij issue or detail next steps in the so-called road map.
"The aim of this road map is the clearing of Manbij of all terror organisations and the permanent instatement of safety and stability," Mr Cavusoglu told a press conference in Washington.
"In the first step, the determination of parameters for common plans for the removal of YPG-PYD from Manbij — you can also call it PKK — will be determined."
The reference to the PKK was a jab at Washington. Ankara considers the YPG to be an arm of the PKK, which both the US and Turkey consider a terrorist group.
The National
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