ISTANBUL, Turkey (BulgarianMilitary.com) – Turkey said on Friday Syrian government forces were violating a ceasefire agreement reached with Russia for Syria’s Idlib, learned BulgarianMilitary.com, quoting Reuters.
Russia has backed the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, while Turkey has backed some rebels in Syria’s eight-year-old civil war, but they have worked together to try to contain fighting in the country’s northwest.
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In recent weeks, that effort has been strained by the surge in violence in Idlib, the last major insurgent stronghold.
“The regime is not keeping its promises of a ceasefire despite the agreement and is violating the ceasefire,” Defence Minister Hulusi Akar said in a statement on the ministry’s website, adding that an escalation in violence could lead to a humanitarian tragedy.
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“The Sochi agreement requires a ceasefire and that is what we want from the Russians. Meetings in Ankara are continuing right now,” he said.
The ministry earlier said a joint working group between Ankara and Moscow had met in the Turkish capital on Thursday and Friday to discuss Idlib, the Sochi agreement and the Astana process – multi-sided efforts to try to provide stability in Syria.
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Moscow had been piling pressure on Ankara to start an operation against the opposition-held areas after Turkey’s failure to push rebels to agree to Russian patrols and get al Qaeda-inspired militants out of a buffer zone that underpinned the Turkish-Russian deal.
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Source: Reuters