Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan remarked on Thursday that “uncertainty” still clouds the United States’ decision to withdraw its troops from Syria.
He made his comments from Russia’s Black Sea resort of Sochi ahead of a summit with President Vladimir Putin and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to discuss Syria.
Erdogan said Ankara wanted to move in coordination with Russia on a planned safe zone in northern Syria and added that Syria’s territorial integrity could not be established as long as the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) is not cleared from the area.
Turkey wants to set up what it calls a safe zone in northeast Syria, parts of which are now controlled by US forces.
But, speaking ahead of the start of the summit, a Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said Ankara would need the green light from Bashar Assad’s regime to create any safe zone inside Syrian borders.
“The question of the presence of a military contingent acting on the authority of a third country on the territory of a sovereign country and especially Syria must be decided directly by Damascus,” Maria Zakharova said in answer to a question about the Turkish safe zone plan. “That’s our base position.”
The Kremlin on Thursday also made clear that its patience with Turkey over a joint deal to enforce a demilitarized zone in the northwestern Idlib region was running short.
Moscow and Ankara brokered the deal in September, saying they wanted the region free of heavy weapons and extremists. The agreement helped avert a regime assault on the region, the last major opposition stronghold.
But Moscow has since complained that extremists who used to belong to the Nusra Front group are now in control there and wants military action to drive them out.
Ankara is less keen as it is concerned about potential refugee flows from Idlib in the event of a military operation.
It also does not want developments in Idlib to distract from its plan to set up a safe zone in the northeast.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow wanted action on Idlib, referring to the “continued presence there of terrorist groups.”
“... Implementing the decision on Idlib is one of the overall components in our policy to stabilize Syria to definitively create the conditions for things to move onto a political settlement,” said Peskov, who made clear Putin would press Erdogan on the subject later on Thursday.
