ANKARA (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 21st February, 2020) While Turkey is not calling on Washington to intervene directly in the ongoing conflict in Syria's Idlib, the United States still may deliver Patriot air defense systems to the country, Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said on Thursday.
Meanwhile, a spokeswoman for the Turkish Defense Ministry refuted earlier in the day, in her comment for Sputnik, media reports claiming that Ankara had requested two Patriot batteries from the US to repel attacks by Russia-backed Syrian troops.
"The US says in its statements that it is supporting us in Idlib. Of course, this does not mean that US servicemen may appear there. This means that we could receive support in the form of Patriot batteries, perhaps, from other European countries. We value such offers," Akar said, as broadcast by CNN Turk.
"Unfortunately, Russia does not fully fulfill our requests on using the Syrian airspace. It is important for us now to be capable of fully using it. There is some progress, we are negotiating, and this is still on the agenda," Akar added.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said earlier in February that Turkey did not implement some of its key obligations for resolving the Idlib crisis, accusing it of failing to separate the armed opposition, which is ready for dialogue with the government, from terrorists. Meanwhile, Turkish Vice President Fuat Oktay has said that the country has fulfilled all of the undertaken commitments on Idlib.
Under the agreement, reached by Russia, Iran and Turkey in May 2017 at the talks in the Kazakh capital, four de-escalation zones have been created in Syria. While the territories of three of them are controlled by Damascus since 2018, the fourth de-escalation zone, located in Idlib and parts of neighboring provinces of Latakia, Hama and Aleppo, remains out of the government control. A large part of the de-escalation zone is seized by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham terror group (formerly known as Nusra Front, banned in Russia). In September 2018, Russia and Turkey reached agreement in Sochi to create a demilitarized zone in Idlib, where over 10 militant groups operate.
