... its work. It supplies humanitarian aid to the last de-escalation zone in northwestern Syria – Idlib province. Control over the province is held by various anti-government and terrorist groups, principally Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, otherwise known as HTS (formerly Jabhat al-Nusra, associated with al-Qaeda, banned in the Russian Federation).
Humanitarian aid vs. sanctions
Igor Matveev:
Syrian Idlib: What’s Next?
According to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, more than 70% of the population of northwestern Syria is in need of humanitarian assistance. These include ...
... de-escalation zone is a temporary measure”. How “temporary” remains unknown. But, apparently, Rouhani and Putin did make the last “warning” to Erdogan: either before the next April summit in Ankara Turkey is taking effective steps to neutralize the HTS, or Iran and Russia are launching a large-scale operation. The second option not only threatens to echo the fate of Eastern Aleppo, but also evokes a cooling or even gradual deterioration in Russian-Turkish relations. These negative connotations will be exploited ...
... enables the return of millions of refugees from Turkey and the EU and forges more incentives for Brussels to finance the reconstruction of a war-torn country. The break of Idlib deal is especially dangerous for the mainstream parties in the EU when far rights gain power from Sweden to Italy.
The single looser of EU–Russia–Turkey alliance is the United States. If four countries agree on Idlib, Russia and Turkey will have more capacity and common ground to raise the question of the American presence in the East Euphrates. Last week Lavrov reminded the US is playing ...
... gained even greater superiority in numbers, which could push the HTS to make further concessions and comply with the provisions of the Sochi agreements on the HTS withdrawing from the 15-kilometer demilitarized
zone
.
Grigory Lukyanov, Ruslan Mamedov:
Russia and Turkey: Approaches to Regional Security in the Middle East
The HTS is split on the issue of implementing the Sochi agreements. Consequently, as of the writing of this article, this group has not yet declared its position. The debate between followers of the two major factions still continues in the HTS’s Shura ...
