ANKARA (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 06th September, 2018) Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Wednesday that the Syrian government's plans to launch a military operation in Idlib carried great risks, and expressed hope that the situation would be resolved at the trilateral Russia-Turkey-Iran summit in Tehran on September 7.
Cavusoglu met with his German counterpart Heiko Maas in Ankara on Wednesday.
"We discussed Syria and the situation in Idlib, we are trying to prevent attacks from the side of the [Syrian] regime. We signed an agreement in Astana where we determined 4 zones of de-escalation, Idlib was the last one left. The regime decided to attack Idlib, but there are guarantors - Russia and Iran, and we continue to closely communicate with them ... We agree that the terrorists are gone, but these attacks are aimed at grabbing Idlib. This carries great risks," Cavusoglu said at a joint press conference after meeting with Maas.
Turkey expects that a decision will be made at the tripartite summit Russia-Turkey-Iran in Tehran "to put an end to the violations in Idlib," he said.
"If there are terrorists there, then it is necessary to decide together how to separate them, but this does not mean that all Idlib should be bombed. If these attacks are attempts to put pressure, then it is wrong. It is necessary to preserve the status of Idlib as a zone of de-escalation. We do not consider attacks that took place before the meeting in Tehran to be the right thing," the Turkish minister added.
The province of Idlib in northwest Syria is the last remaining stronghold of terrorist groups operating in the country, including the Al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front (both are terrorist groups banned in Russia). The Nusra Front has joined four other jihadi groups in Idlib to form a terrorist alliance called Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which is widely regarded as the dominant force on the ground in the province.
The Syrian government has vowed to drive the remaining terrorists out of Idlib and has begun taking steps toward full-scale military operations in the territory.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Tuesday that tens of thousands of extremists from the Nusra-led alliance have been deployed on the ground in Idlib.
