Turkey President Erdogan hosts Putin, Rouhani for Syria summit

ANKARA: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will host his Russian and Iranian counterparts on Monday for their

latest summit on Syria, with attention focused on Damascus's push on the last rebel-held bastion of Idlib.

Presidents Vladimir Putin and Hassan Rouhani will join Erdogan in the Turkish capital Ankara for their fifth summit on the conflict since 2017.

Iran and Russia have been staunch supporters of Syrian President Bashar al-assad, while Turkey has called for his ouster and backed opposition fighters.

But with Assad's position

looking increasingly secure, Turkey's priority has shifted to preventing a mass influx of refugees from Idlib in Syria's northwest.

Turkey is concerned by the steady advance of Syrian forces into the region, backed by Russian airpower, despite a series of ceasefires.

Turkey has 12 observation posts in Idlib to enforce a buffer zone agreement struck a year ago with Russia to prevent a full-scale Syrian offensive.

But the posts look increasingly threatened, with one of them cut off from the rest of Idlib when Syrian forces advanced last month.

Russian air strikes have continued in the region despite the

latest ceasefire between Ankara and Moscow on August 31.

"A large number of terrorists are still present in this zone... and fighters continue to fire on the positions of government forces," Kremlin advisor Yuri Ushakov said on Friday.

The Turkish presidency said the leaders would discuss the

latest developments in Syria as well as "ensuring the necessary conditions for the voluntary return of refugees and discussing the joint step to be taken in the period ahead with the aim of achieving a lasting political solution."

Moscow is keen to see progress on establishing a constitutional committee to oversee the next stage of the political settlement in Syria.

That would give Putin a political win to add to its military victories, said Dareen Khalifa, senior Syria analyst at International Crisis Group.

But she said expectations should remain low.

Even if they could agree on who will form the committee, "this leaves a crux of issues unaddressed for the future of the political process including the regime's ability and willingness to undertake any kind of political reform," Khalifa said. All three leaders are expected to hold one-on-one meetings before the summit, the Kremlin said.

They will also hold a closing news conference with a view to presenting a joint declaration.

Meanwhile, Turkey has other concerns regarding Syria.

It has repeatedly threatened to launch a cross-border offensive against Syrian Kurdish forces, whom it sees as allied to Kurdish militants in its own territory. LUXEMBOURG: Britain has not proposed any workable alternatives to its Brexit withdrawal agreement, the EU said Monday after talks with UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson ended without a breakthrough.

It said the meeting between Johnson and EU Commission president Jean-claude Juncker failed to yield any alternative to proposals on the Northern Ireland border that the British leader has rejected.

Johnson has vowed to take Britain out of the bloc by the scheduled date of October 31, though parliament has ordered him not to do so without striking a deal with Brussels first.

Businesses and opponents of Brexit say leaving without a deal will cause economic chaos as Britain ends its open trade ties to the European Union after 46 years. After a weekend in which he compared himself to comic book super-smasher Hulk, the British leader enjoyed a genteel working lunch of chicken and pollock with Juncker in Luxembourg. European Commission President Jean-claude Juncker, center right, speaks with the media as he shakes hands with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson prior to a meeting at a restaurant in Luxembourg

Downing Street billed the Luxembourg visit as part of efforts to negotiate an orderly divorce from the union before an October 17 EU summit.

It insisted it had been a "constructive meeting" and said the two sides had agreed to step up the pace of talks with daily meetings between negotiators.

But the commission gave a more sober assessment, saying that once again the UK had failed to come up with a viable alternative to the so-called Irish

"backstop" border arrangement.

"President Juncker recalled that it is the UK'S responsibility to come forward with legally operational solutions that are compatible with the Withdrawal Agreement," a statement from Juncker's office said.

"President Juncker underlined the Commission's continued willingness and openness to examine whether such proposals meet the objectives of the backstop. Such proposals have not yet been made." LONDON: British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and EU chief Jean-claude Juncker agreed that Brexit talks "needed to intensify", with daily meetings between officials, Downing Street said Monday.

"The leaders agreed that the discussions needed to intensify and that meetings would soon take place on a daily basis," the prime minister's office said following the first face-to-face talks between the pair in Luxembourg.

Downing Street said in a statement that Johnson and Juncker had a "constructive meeting" over lunch. They "took stock" of the talks so far, and Johnson reconfirmed his determination to reach a deal with the Irish border backstop removed, the statement said.

The PM also "reiterated that he would not request an extension and would take the UK out of the EU on the 31st