Tactical win for Assad as Idlib deal will reopen trade routes
Details of the agreement between Turkey and Russia on a demilitarised zone in the rebel-held north-west province of Idlib, seen by The National, reveal a substantial victory for Damascus, even though it stalled a planned ground offensive there.
The announcement of the deal at first appeared to deal a major blow to the Syrian government’s designs on the province. After weeks of building up forces around the edges and promising an attack, the Syrian army’s operation was thwarted.
But the deal hammered out between Ankara and Moscow stipulates that two strategic motorways running through the province be reopened to traffic by the end of the year, achieving a major aim of the planned government offensive without a shot being fired.
The M4 and M5 roads run from Latakia to Saraqib, and from Syria’s southern tip to the border with Turkey in the north – both have been cut off in Idlib since 2014.
Before the war, the M5 was a major trade route that connected the commercial hub of Aleppo to Damascus and on to the Jordanian border. The recapture of the roads was seen as a likely first phase to a wider government assault on Idlib.
Reopening them would help trade between neighbouring Turkey and regime-held areas. The agreement says these steps are “ensuring free movement of local residents and goods and restoring trade and economic relations”.
“Idlib is strategically relevant less as Idlib itself than as a crossroads between other
more politically and economically significant provinces and as a gateway to Turkey,” said Sam Heller, a senior analyst at Crisis Group.
“For Damascus, reopening these roads is relevant economically because it attempts to reintegrate Syria economically and position itself for postwar reconstruction, and it has symbolic political value as another step towards a unified, state-controlled Syria,” he said.
But, while the agreement had some good news for Damascus, many in Idlib are already seeing the benefits. The pause has allowed some breathing space for the three million people there after weeks of living in fear.
Thousands of people who fled air strikes and the threat of a ground assault have returned to their homes in southern Idlib, according to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
“About 7,000 people have returned to their towns and villages since the announcement of the deal on Monday, especially in the south-east of Idlib and the north of Hama,” Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Observatory, told AFP.
About 40,000 people fled those areas in the first two weeks of September, as Russia launched air strikes and Syrian artillery pounded positions in Idlib. Some had returned home earlier and many others are following.
After the initial attacks, the United Nations said a wider offensive could cause the “worst humanitarian crisis of the 21st century”, sparking intense diplomacy between Turkey and Russia and leading eventually to an agreement.
The deal provoked mixed emotions in Idlib. Abdulkafi Alhamdo, 32, a teacher living in the eastern countryside, told The National: “People might be able to live again. Children might know there is tomorrow without planes. But we are still in nowhere. Refugees for ever.”
Turkey, which has a significant military presence in Idlib and backs rebel groups there, is desperate to avoid a conflict that would send another wave of refugees to its borders.
Ankara now faces the daunting task of tackling extremist groups operating in Idlib – something it has had little success with so far. The extremist Hayat Tahrir Al Sham, a former Al Qaeda affiliate that controls up to two thirds of the province, spoke out against the deal and may have an interest in spoiling it.
As news of the deal broke on Monday, events not far from Idlib served as a reminder of the international nature of the conflict.
An Israeli missile attack against a Syrian government target in Latakia sparked a friendly-fire incident in which Syrian air defences shot down a Russian aircraft. The incident sparked a short-lived diplomatic crisis between Israel and Russia.
United States officials confirmed on Tuesday that the Israeli attack struck “a facility that Iran was using to house sensitive military equipment” that it would later transfer to Hezbollah in Lebanon.
The US line matches that of Israel. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his fighter jets “targeted a facility from which systems to manufacture accurate and lethal weapons were about to be transferred on behalf of Iran to Hezbollah in Lebanon”.
US President Donald Trump said the downing of the Russia jet was “not a good situation” and blamed the Syrian government. “It sounds to me and it seems to me, based on a review of the facts, that Syria shot down a Russian plane,” he said. “And I understand about 14 people were killed and that’s a very sad thing, but that’s what happens.”