you are the winner of the U.S. decision on the withdrawal of troops from Syria: Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan discussed on Wednesday in Moscow at their first summit this year about the consequences of the withdrawal. The two politicians, who have been working together for 2016 in Syria, seeking to expand their influence in that quarter of the Syrian territory, which has been dominated by the Americans and their Kurdish allies. But Putin and Erdogan is not easy to cut the fur of the bear.
Officially, from the point of view of the Turkey, everything is in order in relation to Moscow. Erdogan and Putin would unravel the “mess in the Region,” wrote Ibrahim Karagül, editor-in-chief of the Erdogan-loyal newspaper “Yeni Safak” on the day of the summit. The two heads of state had met in the past year alone seven Times. Only with their interpreters at the side of the two heads of state got together in the afternoon and exchanged pleasantries about the good development of bilateral trade.
warning from Moscow
Russia and Turkey to cooperate in Syria, but that cooperation is not least due to the exclusion of contentious issues possible. They occur due to the planned withdrawal of the U.S. is now more in the foreground. Russia supports the Syrian government and their goal is to conquer all parts of the state territory, including the former US territories. Turkey wants to expand its influence in Northern Syria.
Shortly before the summit, a statement by the Russian had not made the foreign Ministry is already clear that Moscow is quite satisfied with the Turkish policy in Syria. The situation in Idlib province is very worrying and is getting worse rapidly, said foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova.
The finding, a needle was against the guest from Ankara. Although Turkey is supposed to provide according to an agreement with Russia last year in the rebel-held province for peace, Erdogan nothing against the recent takeover of the extremist militia Alliance HTS there made. Of the HTS, which has close ties to Al Qaeda, a threat to Syrian government troops and a Russian air base in the vicinity, – said Zakharova.
The warning undertone was unmistakable. Zakharova reminded the Turkish government that a Offensive of the allies with Russia, Syrian army in Idlib, only postponed, but not repealed. An attack could push several million refugees in neighbouring Turkey, which wants to avoid Erdogan, under all circumstances. In the case of the Turks elections in March, the resentment grows short before the local against many of Syrians in the country.
Turkish claims
Erdogan is the subject of Idlib, therefore, both from Russia as well as domestic pressure. He also wants to focus on the Turkish Syria policy on the objective of buffer zone in the North-East of the civil war country. In the Russian press, it was speculated, therefore, that Erdogan could agree to a limited Russian-Syrian Intervention against the HTS in Idlib agree, if he get in return, in Eastern Syria a free Hand.
Also, Turkey sent at the summit clear signals. Artillery shelling on Wednesday of positions of Kurdish forces in Tel Rifaat in the North of Syria. Erdogan’s press-service chief Fahrettin Altun criticized meanwhile, the United States because of its support for the Kurdish militia, YPG, which is considered by Turkey as a terrorist group. With the buffer zone the Turks want to banish the YPG from the border area. Altuns criticism underlined the Turkey’s claim to a role in the North of Syria after the departure of the Americans.
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middle East for the counterparty in Syria on the game
Christian Böhme, Thomas Seibert
But Putin, the military and political point man in Syria, is reluctant permission for a new Turkish Intervention. In the days before the summit, a variant of the buffer zone was discussed, according to the Assad’s strip troops in the 30-kilometre-wide Territory along the Turkish southern border to take control.
