ANKARA (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 21st February, 2020) Chief of the Turkish General Staff Gen. Yasar Guler and his UK counterpart, Gen. Nicholas Patrick Carter, held a conversation over the phone on Thursday to discuss "current issues" amid escalated tensions in Syria's Idlib province, the Turkish military said.
Earlier in the day, the Turkish Defense Ministry said that two Turkish servicemen had been killed and five others injured in an aerial attack in Idlib. Meanwhile, the Russian Defense Ministry said that its Su-24 attack aircraft delivered airstrikes against pro-Turkish militants, supported by the Turkish armed forces, to help the Syrian army repel militant attacks near Qmenas and Nerab.
"Chief of the Turkish General Staff Yasar Guler held a phone conversation with his British colleague, Nicholas Patrick Carter. During the conversation, current issues were discussed," the Turkish general staff said on the official Twitter account.
In May 2017, Turkey, Russia and Iran, as the guarantors of the Syrian ceasefire, agreed during talks in Nur-Sultan (formerly Astana) to create four de-escalation zones in Syria. Damascus gained control over three of them in 2018, but the fourth, located in Idlib and parts of several neighboring provinces, is mostly controlled by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham terrorist organization (formerly known as Nusra Front, banned in Russia). In September 2018, Russia and Turkey agreed to create a demilitarized buffer zone in the province, where more than 10 different militant groups operate in addition to the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.�
Earlier in February, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that Turkey had not fulfilled several key commitments on Idlib, including its failure to distinguish between the armed opposition, which is ready for dialogue with the government within the framework of the political process, from terrorists. In turn, Turkish Vice President Fuat Oktay has claimed that Ankara had fulfilled its obligations in Idlib.
