Iran-Turkey clashes in Idlib threaten Syria peace deal
Regime strikes in Ghouta kill 47 as Erdogan demands US leave Manbij UN probing chemical weapons’ use by Assad, urges monthlong truce
ANKARA: A deadly attack carried out by Iranian militias on Turkish troops deep inside Syria has cast renewed doubt on the survival of a de-escalation agreement meant to ease tensions between three of the main powers enmeshed in the long-running conflict.
The assault on the outpost in Idlib province, southwest of Aleppo city, on Monday night killed one Turkish soldier and injured five others. The Turkish military retaliated with rocket fire, but experts have told Arab News that the bloodshed could be a sign of further trouble to come.
Last year, officials from Ankara, Tehran and Moscow agreed to set up a series of de-escalation zones in Syria that were supposed to reduce violence between anti-regime insurgents and forces fighting in support of President Bashar Assad.
Huseyin Bagci, a professor of international relations at Ankara’s Middle East Technical University, said the deal — struck in Astana — was “still valid,” but “the three guarantor countries should immediately meet and discuss the ongoing problems.”
He anticipated more clashes between Iran’s proxy forces and Turkish troops in the coming weeks, as both powers seek to exert their influence over Idlib — a province controlled by Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham.
Meanwhile, the death toll from regime airstrikes on the oppositioncontrolled enclave of Eastern Ghouta near Damascus on Tuesday has risen to 47, a monitoring group said. A local official, Khalil Aybour, put the toll at 53.
The head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdel Rahman, said 19 people were still trapped under the rubble in several parts of the area and warned the count could rise further.
The UN called for an immediate humanitarian cease-fire in Syria of at least a month.
A UN-mandated committee said the recent escalation “made a mockery” of the deal, which has failed to take hold as the Syrian regime continues its nationwide military reconquest.
Also on Tuesday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called on the US to withdraw its troops from the Syrian town of Manbij, renewing a threat to expand its military operation in Syria to the region that is held by US-backed Syrian Kurdish fighters.
Addressing legislators from his ruling party on Tuesday, Erdogan said Manbij was a predominantly Arab town and that Turkey would return the territory to its “real owners.”
Turkey launched a cross-border offensive into the northwestern enclave of Afrin to drive out Syrian Kurdish militia and has also vowed to clear Manbij of the Kurdish fighters,
Separately, UN war crimes investigators said they were looking at fresh reports that chemical weapons were being used in opposition-held zones.
The UN Commission of Inquiry on the human rights situation in Syria voiced alarm that it had received “multiple reports” — which it is now investigating — that bombs allegedly containing weaponized chlorine have been used in the town of Saraqeb in Idlib and in Douma in Eastern Ghouta.
Residents in Eastern Ghouta, near Damascus, and in the northwestern Idlib province have accused Syrian troops of using the toxic weapons in recent weeks.