The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) will establish 15 observation posts in the country’s northeastern region as a part of the recent Russian-Turkish agreement, the Ministry of Defense of Russian revealed on October 23.
The ministry released a detailed map showing that Syrian observation posts will be established along the border with Turkey.
Click to see full-size map. Source: Russian Ministry of Defense
Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan reached the agreement following a long face-to-face meeting in Sochi on October 22.
A few hours after the announcement of the agreement, the Turkish Ministry of National Defence said there is no further need to conduct a new operation in northeast Syria.
The agreement includes several terms that allow the Russian Military Police to patrol the border with Turkey and force the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) to withdraw at least 30 km away from the border.
Units of the Russian Military Police reached the border area in northeast Syria earlier today. However, it is still unclear if the YPG is withdrawing its forces from the area.
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Analyzing this map I concluded SAA went up north establishing post next to Turkish border? So what left out of SAA jurisdiction, east border with Iraq and east part north of Euphrates?
And this map just proved the suspicions: The SAA could just make post along the whole border with Turkey, if Turkey truly was only concerned about border security. But the map shows SAA wont be deployed in the Turkish occupied area, and while Russian military policy will be there with the Turks, it surely smells like Turkey wont really give up their occupation. Erdogans motive for the operation was to make facts on the ground, presenting Putin with the result, and that he achieved. Erdogan wont give back Afrin, or the other occupied areas too. And no date for an end of the new occupation “safe zone”. Erdogan will force Turkish language and local administration like in the other occupied areas, make it another informal turkish province. Not to forget that any agreement Erdogan sets his signature on is not worth the paper. With his new NATO buddy Trump Erdogan has all the leverage he needs. To those that say, without Turkeys invasion the US would not have got out: That is just untrue. Trump has demanded the withdrawal over a year ago. Only the Pentagon, foreign policy establishment did not obey his orders, told the Kurds US wont withdraw, and then bitched that Trump would indeed force the pullout. Every civil servant serves to the pleasure of the president, to execute his wishes and policy. His policy was to pull out before the election, and everybody knew this beforehand. Trump would have pulled out in some weeks anyway. It seems those Pentagon officials that did not obey him now learned their lesson: They are now making plans for a fast withdrawal from Afghanistan, to be prepared when Trump says it. Also: Trump has said to the Pentagon, that he want under any circumstances to pull out of Afghanistan before the election. This means, we will definitely see and end to the Afghanistan war SOON, if Trump is not killed or impeached!! DONT THANK THE TURKS. They dont give a shit about Syria, other as a means of looting. Thank Trump, because with all of his faults, at least he 1. wants to end US foreign wars 2. Does not want cold war with Russia. Thats much more one can expect from any western politician today.
To add: Seems it is time Assad prepares to support local insurgencys not only in Golan, but also in N Syria. A quagmire is the only thing to get rid of the Turks in the long term.
I guess that we will know soon. I am very optimistic.
spot on
I wonder how the fuck did they calculate that number of 32 km! It couldn’t have been a nice round number like 30 km because then they couldn’t cut off the highway from Manbij to Qamishlo. Accepting to have one of your main highways cut off by terrorist inhumans is a pretty bad deal. Not to mention bringing in turk patrols where before there weren’t any!
The 32KM are EXACTLY because of the highway, like Jihaids in Idlib block the one there, Turkey can block it with the safe zone here. So trading suffers, and therefore Assad gov suffers. That is the thinking behind it, like Al Tanf.
Also I don’t think turk-FSA were even able to take it militarily… yet now they get it through agreement.
Another brilliant, unbiased analysis on the “agreement”: http://johnhelmer.net/the-sultan-blinked-the-tsar-agreed-to-close-his-eyes-the-ottoman-empire-expands-by-118-kilometres-of-syria/
SAA should have demanded that M$ highway should be in control of Syrian army. This Turkish terriost thugs will not allow any vehicle to pass without bribe . Russia did half job.
The zone is up to 32KM and in most places will be significantly less than that. The current SAA positions will be maintained (“status quo” as per agreement). The M4 highway will be under SAA/Russian/Kurd control.
The Russian strategy is always to stablise and then work towards longer term goals while taking advantage of others’ (like Erdogan) short-termist ambitions. This is why they agreed, for example, the Idlib de-escalation zone. That is now history and the SAA Idlib operation will, I predict, recommence very soon.
The Turks will probably remain in their Northern Syria positons until the constitutional committee is set up, after which they will be forced to agree to leave.
If you look at the goals of Erdogan and Turkey, which was a complete take-down of the Syrian government followed by the annexation of most of Syria and a large part of Iraq; and compare that to what he has achieved and what will have been achieved, it is clear that the imperialist ambition of Erdogan and Turkey has been a monumental failure.
“If you look at the goals of Erdogan and Turkey, which was a complete take-down of the Syrian government followed by the annexation of most of Syria and a large part of Iraq”
Is this conjecture on your part or is there credible supporting information for this assertion?
I agree with the first part, I haven’t seen anything to lead me to believe that the Turks were realistically planning these types of annexations.
Erdogan just want to grab Syrian land, under any pretext. It won’t be happening. Just wait and see, this is enormous error for Turkey, that will turn into a big problem.
When the US supports terrorist during any conflict it ends in a mess. It is a good first step and think Trump is quickly going to pull the rest of the US forces out of Syria. Russia did a great job managing the US retreat. It should have been left up to Israel to fight their own battles from the start. Israel is the cause and is responsible for every life lost in Syria. I think time will balance the scales.
Zionist Winning plan
Fuck off Israeli troll.
The Syrian government has conceded a lot of territory in the Turkish occupation zone that the Turks don’t currently control. That raises a red flag and has probably not gone down well with a lot of Syrians. Whether it is worth the trade off time will tell. Are the Turks going to invest a lot of money in the areas under their control to move the refugees from Turkey to the Turkish occupation zones? And return these areas to full Syrian government administration without a fight? Or is this going to turn into a Turkish Yinon plan land grab or supported secession partition attempt that is going to have to be dealt with militarily?
The risk of demographic engineering in the Turkish occupation zones that favors the Turks to the detriment of the Syrian government is high. Are the Russians going to moderate this so that it doesn’t turn into replacing a Kurd secession attempt with a Turkish occupation zones secession attempt? One would certainly hope so. But even if the Russian intentions are good, will they be successful?
Overall the Syrian government footprint is increasing substantially. Having gone from pre Turkish invasion of 60% of Syrian land under the government’s control to probably 70+% that could turn into 80+% depending on how much of a problem the Kurds and the US pose in and around the oil fields east of Dier Ezzor.
From a military perspective. The Syrian government’s position has improved considerably. With a lot of territory to not only station troops. But also valuable positions to place SADF anti aircraft equipment to proceed with putting a no fly zone in place over the NE.
It also substantially neutralizes the Kurd problem for the Turks. Who would of been in a much worse position if the Zionists had succeeded in setting up Israelistan KRG2 in the NE that they were trying to get in place.
Having a Turkish military presence in Syria to assist with recovering the Golan as part of the Syrian government coalition, and assisting in backstopping negotiations and possible military action to clear the IDF out of the rest of the occupied territories would also be beneficial. A lot depends on how cooperative the Turks are in administering the Turkish occupation zones in conjunction with the Syrian government and returning these areas to full Syrian government control as the remainder of the war wraps up.