Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Russian counterpart President Vladimir Putin yesterday agreed to create a “demilitarised zone” overcoming differences over the Syrian opposition’s stronghold of Idlib.
“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,” said President Vladimir Putin. President Erdogan said “with this agreement I believe we’ve prevented a major humanitarian crisis.”
Turkish contingents and Russian military police will monitor the demilitarized zone. This entails a withdrawal of all radical fighters and heavy weapons from the zone.
Sochi meeting is the second this month for the two leaders who met previously on September 7 in Tehran in a summit hosted by Iranian President Hassan Rowhani but showed disagreement over how to deal with the city controlled by the rebels.
Idlib, with its over three million residents and tens of thousands of fighters gathered from different parts of Syria were preparing for the most decisive battle, mobilising young men to join in the defence of the city that is their last stand against Russian- and Iranian-backed government troops.
Since the failure of Tehran summit and before, Turkish officials repeatedly called for ceasefire based on believes that the situation in Idlib must be solved politically and not military.
The consequences of a military attack on Idlib by the government troops and its allies “will be very serious and it will cause humanitarian crisis and a new wave of migration” said Turkish presidential spokesperson Ibrahim Kalin recently.
Along the preparations of President Bashar Al Assad forces to attack Idlib, Turkey’s military had sent its most significant batch of reinforcements to 12 observation points set up under a deal agreed with Russia inside Idlib with aim of monitoring a de-escalation of violence.
The recent enforcement of these observation points is aimed to prevent a military assault and prevent humanitarian crisis.
The presence of jihadist groups in Idlib does not justify a large-scale offensive against a city populated with over three million civilians is a fact not only being argued by Turkey but also the State of Qatar has warned of the severe humanitarian consequences of the possible attack on the province.
Similar warnings came from UN agencies which warned from a full-scale military offensive which risks creating the worst humanitarian tragedy of the 21st century.
Russia and Iran, key allies of Al Assad’s regime, repeatedly stated that they are doing everything to ensure that the civilian population would not suffer, and this laid the foundation for the demilitarised zone agreement.
The two leaders’ move yesterday not only prevented a military assault on the province and a major humanitarian crisis, but also will pave the way for a political solution for the Syrian crisis, which claimed over half a million lives and displaced millions.
