Ankara dragging its feet on meeting its commitments under agreement on Idlib: Russian diplomat

Turkish regime’s fulfillment of its obligations under the Russian-Turkish agreements on Syrian Idlib is being delayed, Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a briefing on Thursday.

 

“Despite the success achieved in the fight against international terrorism on the long-suffering Syrian soil, the situation there is far from stable,” the diplomat noted.

 

 “The terrorist organizations Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (outlawed in Russia) and Hurras al-Din, Syrian affiliate of Al-Qaeda (outlawed in Russia), have entrenched themselves in Idlib Governorate. The activity of these organizations is partially restrained by the presence of the Turkish military in the Idlib zone and joint Russian-Turkish patrols along M-4 highway at the section between Saraqib and Jisr al-Shughur,” Zakharova said. “However, the implementation by Ankara of its commitments [under the Additional Protocol] to the Russian-Turkish Memorandum, signed on March 5 of this year, is being delayed,” she added.

 

‘The liquidation of the remaining gangs of Islamic State (outlawed in Russia) that regularly surface on both banks of the Euphrates, continues,” she said.

 

“However, terrorists make full use of the enclaves with a radius of 55 kilometers around the illegal US military base al-Tanf, as well as in the zone of the so-called oil interests on Washington on the lands of Arab tribes in the Trans-Euphrates region. Syria’s legitimate authorities are still deprived of any access whatsoever to these areas of the country, and thus of a possibility to establish there basic order,” the spokeswoman said.

 

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish regime’s head Recep Tayyip Erdogan approved a ceasefire in Syria’s Idlib province and other measures aimed to regulate the situation in the region during the talks in Moscow on March 5.

 

Source : TASS