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Erdogan, Putin to Seek to Avoid Clash Over Syria's Idlib


Thursday, 5 March 2020 11:42 WIB

Global


Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan heads to Moscow on Thursday for a high-stakes meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin aimed at de-escalating tensions between the armies of Turkey, a NATO member, and Russia, a nuclear superpower, in Syria's war-torn Idlib province.

While nominally partners in a fight against terrorism in the region, Moscow and Ankara have been cast on a seemingly unavoidable collision course in Idlib — the territory in northwest Syria where Russia is helping its ally, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, wipe out one of the last bastions of opposition to his rule.

Turkey, along with Western governments, accuses the Syrian government of carrying out a bombing campaign with Russian support that has provoked a humanitarian crisis, with nearly a million civilians fleeing the fighting for the Syria-Turkey border.   

The siege has also met with forceful pushback from Ankara because it opposes Assad's rule. In response, Turkey has launched a military campaign intended to protect what it says are largely anti-Assad rebels, not terrorists, in the Idlib stronghold.  

During his briefing with reporters Wednesday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia hoped for a compromise with Erdogan, despite those differences.  

In turn, Erdogan has indicated he expects to negotiate a cease-fire with Putin over Idlib, despite vowing that a recent spate of Turkish attacks against Syrian government targets were “only the beginning” of revenge for the deaths of several dozen Turkish soldiers in Syrian bombing raids last week.   

Injecting more uncertainty ahead of the talks was Assad. 

In an interview with the Kremlin-backed Rossiya-24 channel, the Syrian leader said his forces would finish the operation in Idlib before moving on to mop up remaining pockets of resistance.   

Source : VOA


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