Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, announced on Thursday that they had reached a deal for a ceasefire to come into effect at midnight in the northwestern Syrian town of Idlib.
"At 00.01 tonight, as in, from midnight, the ceasefire will be put in place," Erdogan said, following more than six hours of talks in Moscow, Russia.
"We agreed a joint document," Putin said, adding that he hoped it would "serve as a good basis for ending fighting in the Idlib de-escalation zone and ending the suffering of the civilian population".
Erdogan added that Turkey reserves the right to "retaliate with all its strength against any attack" by Damascus despite the new ceasefire.
"The regime ... is the one to blame for the breakdown of the [2018 Sochi] agreement," Erdogan said.
In a joint statement read out by the Turkish and Russian foreign ministers, the two sides agreed to establish a secure corridor along a key east-west highway in Syria’s Idlib and hold joint patrols on it as of March 15. The corridor will stretch six kilometres to the north and six kilometres to the south of the M4 highway. The two countries’ defence ministers will agree on the parameters of the corridor within seven days, they said.
The joint patrols will begin along the M4 from the Trumba settlement just west of the strategic town of Saraqeb, and run to the Ain al Havr settlement, the statement said.
(FRANCE 24 with AP, AFP, REUTERS)
