Rayhan Ahmed Topader :
Turkey has warned it will not stand by and watch a Russian-led attack on Syria’s Idlib province, which it said could turn the densely-packed north west of the country into a lake of blood and force an overwhelming exodus of refugees. Speaking hours after a three-way summit in Tehran at which the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, pleaded with Russia and Iran to halt any forthcoming offensive, Erdogan ramped up his rhetoric, insisting Ankara would not participate in “furthering the interests of Bashar al-Assad”.
Vladimir Putin had earlier rejected Erdogan’s calls for a ceasefire in Idlib, the last opposition stronghold in Syria. The Russian president holds the key to the forthcoming operation the most significant in a series of Russian and Iranian-led victories across the country. We will neither watch from the sidelines nor participate in such a game, Erdogan said in a message on Twitter. Turkish government spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said recently Idlib is a ticking bomb. We can turn it off and start a new process in Syria if the international community gets serious about the Syrian war and shows that they do care about the Syrian people. Meanwhile, Russian jets renewed their bombardment of southern Idlib, intensively attacking the city of al-Habit, killing four people. Russian jets also struck in the east of the province.After seven years of war, Idlib has become the focus of a struggle that has spilled well beyond Syria’s borders, transforming the conflict into one of the most complex and consequential battlefields of modern times.
Donald Trump has warned Bashar al-Assad and the Syrian president’s allies Iran and Russia not to recklessly attack in the rebel-held Idlib province, warning that hundreds of thousands of people could be killed. The Russians and Iranians would be making a grave humanitarian mistake to take part in this potential human tragedy. Hundreds of thousands of people could be killed. Don’t let that happen!” Trump tweeted on Monday night. Up to three million people in the region are bracing for imminent attack by Russian forces who sense victory in one of the last parts of Syria still out of regime control. On Friday the Russian navy manoeuvred in the nearby Mediterranean, while other nations also took positions; the Turkish army sent an armoured convoy deep into Syria, Iranian-backed militias mobilised to the south and the Syrian army was placed on high alert. The northern province and surrounding areas are the last major enclave held by insurgents fighting Assad, who has been backed by both Russian and Iranian forces in Syria’s seven-year-old civil war. Trump has sought better relations with Russia since taking office in 2017 but the US has been unable to rein in Moscow’s military and diplomatic support for Assad. The US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, said on Friday that Washington viewed any government assault on Idlib as an escalation of Syria’s war, and the state department warned that Washington would respond to any chemical attack by Damascus. Recently Iran called for militants to be “cleaned out” of Idlib as it prepared for talks with Syria and Russia about confronting the last major enclave held by rebels opposed to Assad.
The Iranian foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, visited Damascus to discuss plans for an upcoming summit between the leaders of Iran, Russia and Turkey, which Tehran will host on 7 September to discuss Idlib, Iran’s Fars news agency reported. Turkey, which has long supported anti-Assad rebels, has cooperated with Russia and Iran on talks over Syria in recent years and has troops in the Idlib region on an observation mission. Key parties in Syria’s brutal civil war, now stretching towards the end of its sixth year, will meet in the Kazakh capital of Astana this week for a new round of peace talks.
Organised by Russia and Turkey, and backed by Iran, these are the latest in many attempts to shift Syria’s conflict from battlefield to negotiating table. The conflict has already claimed up to half a million lives and displaced half the pre-war population of 22 million from their homes. But past efforts to end the fighting have come to little, hindered by everything from a lack of trust or any real interest in talks to the absence of powerful Syrian players and their foreign backers. This latest attempt comes after a huge shift in the balance of power on the ground in Syria that may have created an opening for talks. The meeting has the support of international players whose money and weapons have shaped the progress of the war, and follows a ceasefire that has curbed fighting across much of the country since late December and that has also helped build trust.
President Trump, by contrast, has said that his focus in Syria will be fighting Islamic State, and has talked about working more closely with Russia to do so. At the same time, Assad’s own backers, particularly Russia, have grown concerned about the financial and political cost of their bloody campaign. Moscow would like to focus on fighting Isis and, now that Assad’s rule is assured, seems willing to consider compromises on the future shape of Syria. Last week Iran’s defence minister travelled to Damascus and signed an agreement for defence cooperation between the two countries with his Syrian counterpart.
At the heart of global concerns are an estimated 3 million people crammed into Idlib and its surrounds, at least half of whom have fled vanquished opposition areas. The UN has raised the possibility of humanitarian corridors being opened into areas controlled by Damascus. However, many of those now besieged in Idlib say they are not willing, even under bombardment, to risk crossing into government-run areas. The problem is not only Russian and regime jets hovering about,” said Omar, 53, a barber in the province.The problem is that the Assad regime will eradicate all the civilians who will attempt to go through humanitarian corridors; if they’re not murdered they’ll be sent to jail. Civilians are more scared of regime prisons than getting bombed. What you people call humanitarian corridors we call corridors of death and torture. Those who are rooting for corridors are rooting for slow deaths.” While the scale of the expected exodus concerns Turkish officials.
Turkey has positioned some of its own forces in 12 small bases in Syria, to safeguard its interests and make it notionally more difficult for a full-scale attack to be launched. “Russian jet fighters and the regime ground forces cannot afford attacks while Turkish soldiers are there,” Kalin said. We know that they do not care about civilians and legitimate, moderate opposition forces.”Russia has demanded that Erdogan force the withdrawal of jihadist forces from Idlib, a role Ankara said it could not play. Jihadists are mixed within opposition units in the province and have held sway within a large opposition alliance known as Tahrir al-Sham. Putin said in Tehran on Friday that an offensive would be launched imminently if jihadist groups failed to leave. Kalin warned of a renewed exodus to Europe if attack orders were given. Any attack on this province of 3.5 million people..will trigger another wave of migration into Turkey and from there to Europe and elsewhere,” he said. Turkey has largely completed a wall along its 500-mile border with Syria, meaning people trying to flee would face a much more difficult task than in 2012-15, when up to 3 million refugees made their way to Europe. Abu Mukhtar, an unemployed 48-year-old Idlib resident, said the Tehran summit had temporarily calmed nerves. It’s not so bad at the moment, he said. People are feeling a bit more relieved after the Turkish-Iranian-Russian truce.
Turkey has warned it will not stand by and watch a Russian-led attack on Syria’s Idlib province, which it said could turn the densely-packed north west of the country into a lake of blood and force an overwhelming exodus of refugees. Speaking hours after a three-way summit in Tehran at which the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, pleaded with Russia and Iran to halt any forthcoming offensive, Erdogan ramped up his rhetoric, insisting Ankara would not participate in “furthering the interests of Bashar al-Assad”.
Vladimir Putin had earlier rejected Erdogan’s calls for a ceasefire in Idlib, the last opposition stronghold in Syria. The Russian president holds the key to the forthcoming operation the most significant in a series of Russian and Iranian-led victories across the country. We will neither watch from the sidelines nor participate in such a game, Erdogan said in a message on Twitter. Turkish government spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said recently Idlib is a ticking bomb. We can turn it off and start a new process in Syria if the international community gets serious about the Syrian war and shows that they do care about the Syrian people. Meanwhile, Russian jets renewed their bombardment of southern Idlib, intensively attacking the city of al-Habit, killing four people. Russian jets also struck in the east of the province.After seven years of war, Idlib has become the focus of a struggle that has spilled well beyond Syria’s borders, transforming the conflict into one of the most complex and consequential battlefields of modern times.
Donald Trump has warned Bashar al-Assad and the Syrian president’s allies Iran and Russia not to recklessly attack in the rebel-held Idlib province, warning that hundreds of thousands of people could be killed. The Russians and Iranians would be making a grave humanitarian mistake to take part in this potential human tragedy. Hundreds of thousands of people could be killed. Don’t let that happen!” Trump tweeted on Monday night. Up to three million people in the region are bracing for imminent attack by Russian forces who sense victory in one of the last parts of Syria still out of regime control. On Friday the Russian navy manoeuvred in the nearby Mediterranean, while other nations also took positions; the Turkish army sent an armoured convoy deep into Syria, Iranian-backed militias mobilised to the south and the Syrian army was placed on high alert. The northern province and surrounding areas are the last major enclave held by insurgents fighting Assad, who has been backed by both Russian and Iranian forces in Syria’s seven-year-old civil war. Trump has sought better relations with Russia since taking office in 2017 but the US has been unable to rein in Moscow’s military and diplomatic support for Assad. The US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, said on Friday that Washington viewed any government assault on Idlib as an escalation of Syria’s war, and the state department warned that Washington would respond to any chemical attack by Damascus. Recently Iran called for militants to be “cleaned out” of Idlib as it prepared for talks with Syria and Russia about confronting the last major enclave held by rebels opposed to Assad.
The Iranian foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, visited Damascus to discuss plans for an upcoming summit between the leaders of Iran, Russia and Turkey, which Tehran will host on 7 September to discuss Idlib, Iran’s Fars news agency reported. Turkey, which has long supported anti-Assad rebels, has cooperated with Russia and Iran on talks over Syria in recent years and has troops in the Idlib region on an observation mission. Key parties in Syria’s brutal civil war, now stretching towards the end of its sixth year, will meet in the Kazakh capital of Astana this week for a new round of peace talks.
Organised by Russia and Turkey, and backed by Iran, these are the latest in many attempts to shift Syria’s conflict from battlefield to negotiating table. The conflict has already claimed up to half a million lives and displaced half the pre-war population of 22 million from their homes. But past efforts to end the fighting have come to little, hindered by everything from a lack of trust or any real interest in talks to the absence of powerful Syrian players and their foreign backers. This latest attempt comes after a huge shift in the balance of power on the ground in Syria that may have created an opening for talks. The meeting has the support of international players whose money and weapons have shaped the progress of the war, and follows a ceasefire that has curbed fighting across much of the country since late December and that has also helped build trust.
President Trump, by contrast, has said that his focus in Syria will be fighting Islamic State, and has talked about working more closely with Russia to do so. At the same time, Assad’s own backers, particularly Russia, have grown concerned about the financial and political cost of their bloody campaign. Moscow would like to focus on fighting Isis and, now that Assad’s rule is assured, seems willing to consider compromises on the future shape of Syria. Last week Iran’s defence minister travelled to Damascus and signed an agreement for defence cooperation between the two countries with his Syrian counterpart.
At the heart of global concerns are an estimated 3 million people crammed into Idlib and its surrounds, at least half of whom have fled vanquished opposition areas. The UN has raised the possibility of humanitarian corridors being opened into areas controlled by Damascus. However, many of those now besieged in Idlib say they are not willing, even under bombardment, to risk crossing into government-run areas. The problem is not only Russian and regime jets hovering about,” said Omar, 53, a barber in the province.The problem is that the Assad regime will eradicate all the civilians who will attempt to go through humanitarian corridors; if they’re not murdered they’ll be sent to jail. Civilians are more scared of regime prisons than getting bombed. What you people call humanitarian corridors we call corridors of death and torture. Those who are rooting for corridors are rooting for slow deaths.” While the scale of the expected exodus concerns Turkish officials.
Turkey has positioned some of its own forces in 12 small bases in Syria, to safeguard its interests and make it notionally more difficult for a full-scale attack to be launched. “Russian jet fighters and the regime ground forces cannot afford attacks while Turkish soldiers are there,” Kalin said. We know that they do not care about civilians and legitimate, moderate opposition forces.”Russia has demanded that Erdogan force the withdrawal of jihadist forces from Idlib, a role Ankara said it could not play. Jihadists are mixed within opposition units in the province and have held sway within a large opposition alliance known as Tahrir al-Sham. Putin said in Tehran on Friday that an offensive would be launched imminently if jihadist groups failed to leave. Kalin warned of a renewed exodus to Europe if attack orders were given. Any attack on this province of 3.5 million people..will trigger another wave of migration into Turkey and from there to Europe and elsewhere,” he said. Turkey has largely completed a wall along its 500-mile border with Syria, meaning people trying to flee would face a much more difficult task than in 2012-15, when up to 3 million refugees made their way to Europe. Abu Mukhtar, an unemployed 48-year-old Idlib resident, said the Tehran summit had temporarily calmed nerves. It’s not so bad at the moment, he said. People are feeling a bit more relieved after the Turkish-Iranian-Russian truce.
