Turkey-Russia discord over Idlib defers regime offensive, for now
ISTANBUL: 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 September 7 to discuss
Syria, just as a major assault by Russia-backed 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 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
cease-fire.
To date, the dialogue has resulted in the creation of four pre-cease-fire “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) extremist 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 Syria-based Jusoor Studies Center,
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 de-escalation 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 neighboring 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 full-fledged 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.
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