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According to reports by both Russia and Turkey, the Idlib ceasefire appears to be holding somewhat stable.
On March 9th, the Russian reconciliation center registered two violations, either from the Turkistan Islamic Party or Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, which Turkey officially doesn’t support. The Turkish-backed “moderate opposition” didn’t carry out any violations according to reports.
Units of the Russian military police provided 13 Turkish convoys with escorts to the locations of the observation posts of the Turkish armed forces located in the Idlib de-escalation zone.
- On March 10th, the Russian reconciliation center registered two violations again, from the same groups reportedly. Russian military police escorted 4 Turkish convoys to observation posts in Idlib.
- On March 11th, eight violations were registered, by the same militant groups. Russian military police escorted 7 Turkish convoys to observation posts in Idlib.
It is questionable how that will happen, since the leader of the Turkish-backed National Liberation Front, Jaber Ali Basha said that his group would not vacate the area.
Leader of the Turkish-backed "National Liberation Front" , Jabe rAli Basha, said on his Twitter account, "We will remain attached to our land, neither surrender nor surrender to any inch." stressing that it won´t withdraw south of M4.
— Rojava Network (@RojavaNetwork) March 11, 2020
Interfax reported that the Turkish and Russian ministries of defense communicated on the situation in Idlib.
“Issues related to the implementation of the additional protocol to the memorandum on stabilization of the situation in the Idlib de-escalation zone (adopted in Moscow on March 5, 2020) were discussed,” the Russian Defense Ministry said.
According to the Russian Defense Ministry, the telephone conversation took place at the initiative of the Turkish side.
On March 10th, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan gave a positive assessment to the process of fulfilling the agreements between Ankara and Moscow to normalize the situation in the Syrian province of Idlib.
On the same day, the Russian center for reconciliation of the warring parties in Syria (part of the Russian Federation in Syria) reported that the Russian and Turkish military have created a special permanent communication channel on Idlib.
“Over the past day, the Russian military police have secured 13 Turkish convoys to the locations of the observation posts of the Turkish armed forces located in the Idlib de-escalation zone,” Rear Admiral Oleg Zhuravlev, head of the Russian center, said the day before.
Despite that, Turkey remains adamant that if the ceasefire is violated, Turkey would start a war with Syria.
“Turkey will do more than mere retaliation if its observation posts in Idlib are targeted,” Erdogan said.
“We are closely monitoring the deployment of the [Bashar al-Assad] regime and allied militants near the cease-fire lines,” he said.
On talks between Turkish and Russian military officials on starting joint patrols in Idlib, under the terms of a cease-fire reached last week, Akar said: “The Russian military delegation arrived and talks continue. We reached a great deal of agreement.”
Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said that Turkish troops in Idlib would not leave.
“Our forces have been ordered to act accordingly if the cease-fire is violated and attacks continue. Everyone is ready at any moment […] We will continue to restart where we left off and hurt them [Assad regime forces],” Akar said.
On March 12, the Kremlin also reported that Turkish and Russian presidents hold a phone call discussing the situation in Idlib. According to Russia, the sides discussed the implementation of the Moscow agreement and noted the decrease of tensions in the region.
On March 15th, the Russian-Turkish patrols along the M4 highway, through the negotiated safety corridor are set to begin. If despite all the difficulties, Russia and Turkey will be able to create a real security zone along the M5 highway and start joint patrols in the area, this will be a major breakthrough in the de-escalation efforts in Greater Idlib. If this does not happen, a new military escalation in the region will be expected in the mid-term future.
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Is the truth starting to sink in yet, are we all finally starting to realize what’s really happening, 13 Turkish military convoys escorted to the OB posts, in other words the Russians are protecting the Turkish convoys from SAA attacks. The M5 is ours and the M4 is theirs, that’s the truth of it plain and simple.
The Turkistan Islamic Party are nothing but trouble, the Uighurs have all gone mad with religious bloodlust and are still spoiling for a fight, and there’s at least 6,000 fighters in their group alone, add the nearly 3,000 mad Chechens they’re neighbours with and another 5 or 6,000 foreign Jihadists from other nut job militias living in the area and guess what’s going to happen, the M4 will be just as unsafe for the Turkish backed ‘moderate opposition’ as it never was before lol, it may actually work out in our favour. :], clever Russians. This deal gives the moderate opposition Turkey officially supports ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING, but it gives the terrorists ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, an absolute recipe for disaster if ever there was one, a time bomb waiting to go off, LOL. Jealousy is about to show its ugly head, the Turkish backed opposition is about to find out the hard way the designated terrorists don’t like being abandoned, LOL, and I imagine they’re about to exact a heavy price for being left in the lurch. LOL, I think the foreign Jihadists are about to do half the SAA’s job for them, and when and if they do all turn on each other, the moderate opposition may have to end up asking Assad to come in and save them, because I don’t think the Turks will be able to, LOL. Approx 15,000 foreign Jihadist and about 15 to 20,000 Syrian Jihadists have been left out of the deal, so they outnumber the 30,000 moderate opposition in numbers if not equipment, but they’re each and every one of them a fanatical zealot, so they’re more than willing to go to heaven for their cause, the moderate opposition aren’t though, they’re not totally convinced about the virgins waiting in heaven story, so the superior equipment Turkey supplied for the moderate opposition may not be enough to counter the Zealots if they start turning on them. Uighur and Chechen bandits all lined up along the M4 highway, LOL, give us your money or your life you moderate opposition traitors, LOL, let’s just sit back and watch the show, it should be hilarious.
We’ll see. There was a report that US special forces were going to do a false flag attack on turkish forces to blame on the SAA. I was thinking the escorts might have something to do with that.
That sounds like another propaganda story to me, something to just confuse the truth once again. Over the last few days Russian media has done everything they can to avoid telling the pro Russian side the truth about the M4, SF has published 2 pieces of trash over the last few days that do everything they can to hide the truth. SF has been telling us all 2 different stories over the last few days, one story is about what the government side is doing to re open the highway on their side, and the other story is about what the rebels are doing, and they’ve told us both stories without making a CLEAR distinction about who’s really doing WHAT and WHERE. By merging the 2 DIFFERENT stories without elaborating properly, they’ve confused many people and told a WHOPPING LIE without telling any lies, they avoided telling everyone the real truth. The M4 highway is the Turks highway but the Russians can use it too, and the M5 is the SAA’s highway, that’s the plain and simple truth, that’s what the new deal REALLY means, it doesn’t mean the SAA and pro Assad civilians get to use the M4 too, they just tried give us the wrong impression which made many of us think that they could, but pig’s can’t really fly, and when someone tries to tell you they can, you have to look twice.
Of course the Turks could turn out to be better than we thought. Wouldn’t that be nice.