Putin and Erdogan agree to stall Assad forces’ final assault
YOU may not have heard much about Idlib, the northern Syria province that is now the last holdout of rebels that have been battling the regime of Bashar al-Assad since 2011.
Syria’s war has largely slipped from the headlines after eight years of bloodshed and horror. More than 500,000 have died in a conflict marked by sieges, starvation and the displacement of more than 11 million Syrians, a great many of them now refugees in neighbouring countries like Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan as well as further afield in Europe. The tragedy that has consumed Syria may no longer make news as it once did but it grinds on for Syrians inside and outside the country.
In recent weeks, the three million civilians who call Idlib home cowered in the face of what appeared to be an imminent regime offensive to wrest control of the province from the patchwork of rebel groups that have clung on there. The expected assault was to be backed by Moscow, without whose support Assad would not have been able to make the gains he has in recent years.
Residents of Idlib began stockpiling whatever food they could find. Some, fearing the regime would use chemical weapons as it has in the past, attempted to make their own improvised gas masks from household items.
As Russian aircraft started bombing around Idlib and regime ground forces advanced towards the region, the UN – not for the first time when it comes to Syria’s war – warned that the offensive could result in this century’s biggest humanitarian crisis.
Then diplomacy, which has failed Syria so often since 2011, appeared to stave off what many feared was the inevitable. Diplomacy delivered an agreement between Turkey and Russia that – if it works and holds, both major caveats – might save Idlib from a much bloodier destiny.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, agreed last Monday to establish a demilitarised zone in Idlib – all of 14km by 19km in size – which will be jointly patrolled by Russian and Turkish troops.
Rebel forces in this buffer zone will have to give up their weapons by October 10 while jihadist groups such as the powerful al-Q’aida linked Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) must withdraw completely.
Jan Egeland, a senior adviser to the UN special envoy for Syria, spoke of relief that the countdown to war was stopped at the “11th hour” and said the threatened operation would have risked the lives of a million children among the civilian population.
The Russian-Turkish deal, he said, had at least bought more time to avert a humanitarian catastrophe.
But there are many questions about the agreement, the contours of which are not as defined as some would like. No details were given, for example, on what Idlib’s ultimate fate will be.
Pro-regime Syrian newspaper ‘al-Watan’ quoted Russian diplomats saying the deal envisages a second deadline in November when all rebel groups will have to surrender their heavy weapons throughout the province with Assad re-imposing his authority there by year end. These are both highly ambitious goals,
particularly when several of the rebel factions have vowed to fight to the end.
The agreement, in terms of its crafting, says much about the current geopolitical shape of Syria’s war. Moscow and Ankara – seen as backers of opposing sides in the conflict – forged the deal and are named as “guarantors” of the ceasefire.
Assad is not a guarantor, nor is Iran – another key player as a long-time Assad ally. The agreement shows how much Moscow and Ankara now consider themselves as the main deciders of Syria’s fate.
Russia has an interest in not just maintaining but growing an alliance with Turkey on Syria if it is to pursue its wider regional ambitions in and around the Mediterranean.
Sceptics note similar agreements have come and gone over the long years of the Syrian conflict. And even if the deal sticks, there are internal and external dynamics that could scupper it. Just hours after the agreement on Idlib, Israeli jets bombed an army facility in Syria located close to Russia’s main air base in the country. When Assad’s air defence sought to retaliate, they shot down a Russian military plane instead.
It was a reminder of the complexities of Syria’s conflict and how many external actors it has pulled in since 2011.
At any one time, military aircraft from at least six countries can be found in Syrian airspace. And on the ground below, a traumatised population pummelled by a war that continues.