Russia-Turkey split defers Idlib

DAESH kills 20 US-backed fighters

ISTANBUL, Sept 15, (Agencies): Disagreement between Turkey and Russia over how to tackle the Syrian rebel stronghold of Idlib seems to have deferred a looming regime offensive on the province, analysts say.

Russia and Turkey are on opposite sides of the conflict, but key global allies.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met Russian and Iranian leaders Vladimir Putin and Hassan Rouhani in Tehran on Sept 7 to discuss Syria, just as a major assault by Russiabacked regime forces on Idlib appeared imminent.

But discord at the summit between Erdogan and Putin, in a rare scene captured on camera, may have prompted Russia to postpone the Idlib strike so as not to provoke Ankara, which is fiercely opposed to a military option.

“I believe an offensive, if there will be one, will not come before several weeks,” a senior Turkish official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Turkey, which backs rebels fighting against President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, co-sponsors – with regime allies Russia and Iran – the so-called Astana talks launched in January 2017 in the quest for a lasting ceasefire.

To date, the dialogue has resulted in the creation of four pre-ceasefire “de-escalation zones” in Syria, including in Idlib.

Idlib is the last major opposition stronghold in the war-torn country. Sixty percent of the area is controlled by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) jihadist group, an al-Qaeda branch operating in Syria.

Intense negotiations have taken place between Turkey and Russia since the failure of the Tehran summit, to hammer out a compromise in a bid to avert an assault which Erdogan has cautioned would ignite a “bloodbath”.

Such a compromise could include neutralising the HTS – officially designated as a terror group by Ankara. Erdogan and Putin are expected to discuss the issue when they meet in the Russian resort city of Sochi on Monday. For Turkey, the stakes are high. Ankara fears a large-scale assault on Idlib, which lies on its southern border, could trigger a massive flow of refugees onto its soil. Turkey is already home to more than three million Syrians who have fled the conflict.

Abdul Wahab Assi, an analyst at the Syriabased Jusoor Studies Centre, said disagreements at the Tehran summit “rule out a possible offensive in the short run, at least until the end of the year.”

He said a possible compromise from the ongoing talks could take the form of a “limited military operation or surgical strikes” targeting the HTS, or modifying the borders of the deescalation zones to keep armed rebels from certain sectors.

Russia may be open to such a plan, Assi said,

as long as it would secure the Idlib section of the Aleppo-Damascus highway and put an end to drone attacks launched from Idlib against Moscow’s main military base of Hmeimim in the neighbouring province of Latakia.

Some three million people live in Idlib province and adjacent areas, the United Nations says, around half of whom have already fled their homes in other parts of Syria.

Regime forces and Russian warplanes resumed airstrikes on Idlib in September but the strikes fell in intensity this week.

Turkish media reported Ankara has sent reinforcements, including tanks, to beef up its border with Syria and its observation posts in Idlib.

Turkish military analyst Metin Gurcan, judges these measures to be of a “defensive” nature, aimed at protecting Turkish observation posts against any possible threat.

Gurcan said the lack of an agreement with Ankara could push Moscow, and thus the Syrian regime, to stage an “incremental operation that will last months” rather than a fullfledged attack.

“Russia is trying to keep Ankara in the game,” he told AFP, saying any confrontation between the two countries was “highly unlikely.”

“Moscow needs Turkey as a Sunni power to balance Shiite militias’ presence in northern Syria,” he said.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Friday that the Syrian regime is not preparing a major offensive against the opposition-held Idlib, adding that Moscow will do everything to protect civilians.

Russia-backed regime forces have massed around Idlib in recent weeks, sparking fears of an imminent air and ground attack to retake the last major opposition bastion.

“What is being presented at the moment as the beginning of a Russianbacked offensive by Syrian forces is not a faithful representation of the facts,” said Lavrov during a GermanRussian forum in Berlin.

“Syrian forces and we ourselves are simply reacting to the attacks coming from the zone of Idlib,” he argued.

Lavrov also said that Russia was concerned about civilians’ welfare.

“We will take care on these issues, we will establish humanitarian corridors, set up ceasefire zones and we are doing everything to ensure that the civilian population would not suffer,” he said.

Turkey said on Friday it was talking to all parties in the Syrian conflict to prevent a government offensive on Idlib ahead of talks between Russian and Turkish leaders, who support rival sides in the looming battle for the rebel-held region.

Ankara failed last week to win agreement for a ceasefire from Russia and Iran, President Bashar al-Assad’s main backers, but there has been a recent lull in air strikes and a proDamascus source indicated a ground attack may not be imminent.

Rebels also said some pro-Assad forces had left frontlines in northwest Syria in recent days.

Turkey has reinforced a dozen military posts inside the Idlib region, which lies across its southern border and is controlled by Turkey-backed rebels and jihadist fighters, trying to forestall a government assault.

Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Turkey had also contacted foreign ministers of several countries and was in touch with “all actors in Syria”.

“We are making an effort for a ceasefire in Idlib,” he said, repeating Turkey’s call for targeted operations against jihadist militants, including the Tahrir al-Sham alliance, instead of an indiscriminate onslaught.

“We are ready to cooperate with everyone to fight terrorist organisations. But killing everyone – civilians, women, children – like this in the name of fighting terrorist organisations is not right and is not humane,” he said on a visit to Pakistan.

The United Nations has warned that an offensive in Idlib could trigger a humanitarian catastrophe in an area where 3 million people live. Turkey, already hosting 3.5 million Syrians, says it cannot take in another wave of refugees.

President Erdogan will hold talks in Russia on Monday with Vladimir Putin to discuss the Syrian crisis, 10 days after similar talks in Tehran, Turkish and Russian officials said.

Despite the deadlock at the Iran meeting, calm has largely prevailed in northwest Syria this week following a wave of air strikes which killed several dozen people and generated speculation of an imminent ground offensive.

A Syrian war monitor and a Kurdish official say members of the Islamic State group have killed 20 US-backed fighters in the country’s east.

The attack occurred late Friday in Deir Ezzor province where the USbacked Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces launched a wide offensive this week to capture the last pocket held by IS in Syria.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the extremists took advantage of a sand storm to launch a counterattack, which killed 20 fighters and wounded others.