© Omar Haj Kadour / AFP
Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) militants at a camp in Syria's province of Idlib on August 14, 2018.
Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) militants at a camp in Syria's province of Idlib on August 14, 2018.
On September 18, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu stated that work to establish a new security system in the Idlib de-escalation zone had started. He recalled that all heavy weapons have to be withdrawn from the demilitarized zone by October 10 and radical groups have to withdraw their forces by October 15.
So, Turkey and the Syrian-Iranian-Russian alliance have to force the militants to obey the agreement if they seek to enforce the demilitarized zone in time.
Pro-militant media outlets have already started spreading speculations that Damascus will not act up to its part of the agreement thus creating a media environment to justify actions of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and its allies.
Comment: It's hard to reason with unreasonable people, which is what jihadi terrorists are by definition.
From FARS: All three stages of the Turkey-Russia agreement require terrorist or 'rebel' groups playing along. Of course, it would have been surprising if they did accept - being who they are. But the fact is that Putin, by agreeing to Turkey's use of the diplomatic card in order to save its proxies, has put Erdogan in a position in which he will be forced to side with Russia, Syria and Iran against the militants who are refusing to take Turkey's lead. It seems that once again Putin's 'wise as serpent, gentle as dove' approach is solving a major problem, in this case the Turkish problem in Idlib.
As for the terrorists themselves, they are still counting on their old dirty tricks:
Russian UN envoy: White Helmets continue to prepare provocations in Idlib