Turkey, Iran and Russia to work for Syria stability

RUSSIA, TURKEY AND IRAN VOICE REJECTION OF SEPARATIST AGENDAS

Turkey, Iran and Russia pledged yesterday to accelerate efforts to bring stability to Syria, underlining their joint commitment to the country a day after President Donald Trump raised the prospect of withdrawing US troops.

A statement by the three countries after a summit meeting in the Turkish capital Ankara said they were determined to “speed up their efforts to ensure calm on the ground” in Syria.

While their decision to work together has done little to reduce violence in Syria, in part because of their own military interventions on opposing sides, it underlined their central role just as questions grow over Washington’s commitment.

A senior US official said Trump wanted US forces out of Syria relatively soon. “We’re not going to immediately withdraw but neither is the president willing to back a long- term commitment,” the official said.

Around 2,000 US troops are deployed in northern Syria on a mission to battle the remnants of Daesh.— Agencies

Turkey, Russia and Iran yesterday said they were committed to achieving a “lasting ceasefire” in Syria, in a joint statement issued following a summit in Ankara hosted by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Erdogan, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Russia’s Vladimir Putin reaffirmed their commitment to cooperating for “the achievement of a lasting ceasefire between the conflicting parties”, a joint communique said.

The three powers have been working together to speed up the process of finding a political solution in Syria as part of the Astana peace process which began last year.

The Ankara summit at Erdogan’s presidential palace was the second such tripartite summit following one in November 2017 in the Black Sea resort of Sochi hosted by Putin.

Erdogan insisted their meetings and the Astana talks were not an “alternative” to the UN-backed Geneva process to find peace in Syria.

But the three leaders said “the Astana format had been the only effective international initiative that had helped reduce violence across Syria and had contributed to peace and stability in” the country.

They added that it had given “impetus to the Geneva process in order to find a lasting political solution to the Syrian conflict” in the statement.

“What is foremost for us is getting results. We must get results. We have no tolerance for delays. People are dying here,” Erdogan told reporters after the summit. The three countries have been working together despite being on opposing sides of the civil war.

Russia and Iran have provided military and political support to the regime of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad while Turkey has repeatedly called for his removal and helped Syrian opposition fighters.

Turkey last month drove out Kurdish militia from Afrin city after launching a cross- border offensive in the Syrian region in January, thanks to a reported green light from Moscow which controls airspace in northern Syria.

On his part, Rouhani said that the Syrian region of Afrin, captured by Turkish forces and their Syrian rebel allies, should be handed over to Syria’s army.

Call for bigger aid supplies

“The developments in Afrin can only be useful if they do not violate Syria’s territorial integrity, and control of these areas should be handed over to the Syrian army,” Rouhani said at a summit meeting in Ankara.

Meanwhile, the three leaders called for bigger humanitarian aid supplies, as well as assistance in clearing landmines and aid to help restore the destroyed infrastructure.

Speaking after yesterday’s summit in Ankara, Erdogan pointed at the EU’s failure to deliver € 3 billion in assistance he said it promised to help restore Syria’s north. He added that Turkey will continue to invest its own funds in rebuilding Syria.

They also said they stood against “separatist” agendas that would undermine Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.

In a joint statement released at the end of their summit meeting in Ankara, they “rejected all attempts to create new realities on the ground under the pretext of combating terrorism”.

They reaffirmed their commitment to working towards achieving ceasefires between conflicting parties in Syria and emphasised commitment to the sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity of Syria.

The statement said the countries reaffirmed determination to continue cooperation “in order to ultimately eliminate” Daesh and other entities associated with Al Qaida.

The next three- way summit will take place in Tehran, Erdogan said, but he did not indicate when that would be.

More than half a million people have been killed since the start of the conflict following antigovernment protests in March 2011.

Meanwhile, the US said yesterday it had reached a deci-