No military assault on Idlib, Russian defence minister says
ERDOGAN AND PUTIN ANNOUNCE DEMILITARISED ZONE IN REBEL-HELD SYRIA PROVINCE
Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu yesterday said there would be no military assault on Syria’s rebel province Idlib after the presidents of Turkey and Russia agreed to create a demilitarised zone in the area.
“We have decided to create a demilitarised zone some 15 to 20 kilometres deep along the line of contact between the armed opposition and regime troops by October 15 of this year,” President Vladimir Putin said after more than four hours of talks with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
This would entail a “withdrawal of all radical fighters” from Idlib including the Al Nusra Front, Putin said.
The two leaders also agreed on the withdrawal of “heavy weaponry from this zone”, including tanks, multiple launch rocket systems, and rocket launchers belonging to all armed groups, Putin added.
“Control in the demilitarised zone will be organised together with mobile patrol groups of Turkish contingents and contingents of Russian military police,” he said.
By the end of the year, transportation routes between Latakia and Aleppo as well as Latakia and Hama must be restored, Putin added.
Erdogan said the measures would “prevent a humanitarian crisis”.
Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said the agreement between Putin and Erdogan meant that no military action would be taken against Idlib, Russian news agencies reported.
Russia-backed forces of the Syrian regime have massed around Idlib province in recent weeks.
That sparked fears of an imminent air and ground attack to retake the last major opposition bastion.
The province, the size of Lebanon, has been the beating heart of the rebellion for years. In rebel hands since 2015, it is the largest contiguous territory they controlled. It has access to Turkish borders, securing supply lines for weapons, fighters and aid.
For the past two years, Idlib became the shoe-box into which were pushed an estimated 20,000 rebel fighters from around the country, after their losses to regime troops and surrender deals negotiated with Russia and Damascus following devastating sieges. Civilians who refused to go back under regime rule were also bussed there, nearly doubling the province’s population.
Among the estimated 60,000 opposition fighters in Idlib are at least 10,000 radicals affiliated with the Al Qaida-linked group, Hayat Tahrir Al Sham (Arabic for Levant Liberation Committee). Thousands of foreign fighters from China, Europe and the Middle East are the backbone of the radical groups.
Turkey last week sent reinforcements to 12 observation points that Ankara set up around Idlib last year under a deal with Russia and Iran creating a “de-escalation zone.” The deal also effectively stopped an earlier regime advance and set Turkey up as Idlib’s protector.
Separately, Turkey has troops stationed in the enclave under its control north and east of Idlib, where it backs Syrian opposition fighters and a civilian administration. It is part of its plan to create a safe area along the border where some of the more than 3 million Syrian refugees it hosts may return.
Complicated strategy
Ankara initially sent in its troops more than two years ago to push out the Daesh and Syrian Kurdish fighters. For Ankara, the increasingly assertive, US-backed Syrian Kurds were an existential threat that encourages the aspirations of its own Kurdish insurgents.
“In the mind of the rebellion, the hope is that from Turkish support they can have … a republic of northern Syria, protected by Turkey like Northern Cyprus,” said Fabrice Balanche, a Syria watcher at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
An Idlib offensive could have held multiple threats for Turkey right on its border — a humanitarian crisis, a security nightmare with thousands of gunmen loose and a defeat to its plans for the safe zone. If Syrian regime forces had retaken Idlib with no agreement on the fate of the opposition fighters, they could threaten the Turkeycontrolled enclave, and Ankara would lose credibility with the fighters and leverage with Damascus on any future deal.
Turkey’s strategy in the opposition areas has been complicated by the presence of radical fighters. By backing the National Front, it argued it can draw fighters away from the Al Qaida-linked HTS, the dominant power in the province, forcing it to dissolve and creating a new opposition force ready to negotiate with the Syrian regime.
The strategy has had limited success.
In rallies around Idlib in the last two weeks, protesters took to the streets to deny that the province is a hotbed of extremists. Thousands raised only the flag of the Syrian revolution, a reminder that there was once a popular uprising against Al Assad and Idlib is now its last bastion.
Some raised banners reading: “The rebels are our hope and the Turks are our brothers.”