A delegation from Turkey’s Defense Ministry headed on Thursday to Russia to discuss the latest developments in Syria.
The delegation headed by Defense Minister Hulusi Akar and Intelligence Chief Hakan Fidan went to discuss the safe zone and the US withdrawal from Syria, media reports said.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan discussed with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Moscow last week the US withdrawal from Syria, the safe zone in the country’s north and the latest developments in Idlib.
Moscow expressed discomfort towards the return of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) – previously known as al-Nusra Front – to control the agreed-upon de-escalation zone in Idlib.
The Sochi deal, signed between Erdogan and Putin on Sep. 17, was not completely implemented, according to Moscow.
The Turkish delegation’s visit followed a meeting of the Turkish National Security Council which affirmed Ankara’s standpoint from preserving the status-quo in Idlib, and swiftly implementing the roadmap in Manbij and other agreements on the area east of the Euphrates.
Certain members of the US-led coalition fighting ISIS, support militants from HTS in Idlib and are aspiring to strike the Russian-Turkish agreement on the de-escalation zone, said Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu.
“Certain partners from the coalition support HTS… First, for the termination of the Idlib memorandum. Second, there are countries that are making great efforts to prevent the establishment of a constitutional committee just because we are doing it”, Cavusoglu told the Hurriyet newspaper.
He specified that some Western countries from the coalition were provoking HTS militants to violate the provisions of the Idlib memorandum by paying them. Cavusoglu noted that the countries of origin of foreign fighters from HTS were unwilling to take them back.
