Four months after Syria and Russia agreed to call off its joint attack on HTS/al-Qaeda-held Idlib province, opting amidst US threats to cut a ceasefire deal mediated with Turkey, Moscow now says Ankara has failed to live up to its end of the bargain,
which included agreeing to clear Idlib of terrorists and extremist groups. This means a joint Syrian Army-Russia assault on Idlib could again be on the horizon, which was a major source of tension and threats with the United States previously in September.
The collapse of the prior 'deescalation' agreement comes at a time when the White House has vowed to stick to the planned US pullout, however,
this could be yet a another major development to complicate or delay any possible withdrawal timeline.
FT described current Turkish-Russian talks in Moscow
as follows:
Russia has accused Turkey of failing to live up to a promise to clear Syria's Idlib of extremist militant groups and admitted that a landmark ceasefire agreement made last September had failed. Ahead of crunch talks between the leaders of the two countries in Moscow on Wednesday, Russia's foreign ministry said the Islamist extremist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) had "full control" of Syria's last remaining major opposition stronghold. The damning assessment came four months after Moscow agreed to postpone a planned military assault on the city in exchange for a promise from Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan to clear it of militants.
HTS is of course the rebranded coalition dominated by former Nusra Front militants, which is Syrian al-Qaeda. Russia has called the situation "rapidly deteriorating" and this week pointed to
growing numbers of ceasefire violations and incidents and threats against Russia's Hmeimim airbase in Syria. Russia's Foreign Ministry cited that
"65 people have been killed and more than 200 injured in more than 1,000 recorded breaches of the agreement," according to
FT. This despite Erdogan previously agreeing to keep militants away from a 15km to 20km deep buffer zone established between HTS and pro-Damascus forces.
Comment: Sounds like someone is trying to conflate 'Putin's low ratings', attributed to the gov raising the age for pensions, with a promised free gas giveaway dispute with Gazprom.