The Turkish army has brought in military and logistic reinforcements to its positions in de-escalation zones in Syria’s Idlib that lie in the areas covered in the agreement reached between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Asharq Al- Awsat, June 22, 2024, by Saeed Abdulrazek
The reinforcements were concentrated in the sourthern Idlib region, while on the other side, Syrian troops have also been amassing.
Damascus sent a missile system from the Raqqa and Sabrin airports in the Aleppo countryside and deployed them in areas adjacent to regions held by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and other factions.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights predicted that clashes may soon erupt between the Syrian forces and armed factions in Idlib.
Turkish forces have also been busy completing a “security line” stretching across their positions in eastern Idlib.
The Observatory said Turkish forces continued to pour into the contact lines with the Syrian troops for the third straight day.
The reinforcements began after a meeting between Putin and Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan in Moscow on June 11.
At the same time, sources close to the Syrian government told Turkish media that a meeting was held between Russian, Turkish and Syrian military officials at the Hmeimim air base in Syria’s Latakia.
The sources viewed the meeting as a resumption of talks between Ankara and Damascus that had been frozen for some time.
The meeting focused on developments in Idlib and its surrounding areas. This was the first meeting of its kind to be held on Syrian territories.
Turkish sources approached by Asharq Al-Awsat did not confirm or deny that the meeting was held. They did reveal, however, that Putin and Fidan had discussed the possibility of resuming Moscow-sponsored talks that began in June 2021.
The issue will be discussed during the upcoming meeting between Putin and Erdogan in July at the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in Astana on July 3-4.