Putin and Erdogan To Discuss Implementation of Idlib Agreements

March 3, 2020 (EIRNS)—Ahead of the meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, on March 5, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that the topic of the talks for Russia is the implementation of Idlib agreements between the two in September 2018 in Sochi. “Regrettably, [the Russian-Turkish agreements on Idlib] are not being implemented. I hope the meeting between Presidents Putin and Erdogan later this week will make it possible to change this situation and begin to move along the path of the implementation of what has been agreed,” he told a news conference today, reported TASS.

Russia has officially accused Turkey of fighting alongside the terrorists it had agreed to separate from the legitimate Syrian opposition.

Aside from the clear support for Damascus that the Russian military is providing on the ground, the Russians landed a ship, which transited the Bosporus Strait yesterday, heavily laden with military equipment for the Syrian army, which was unloaded at the Syrian port of Tartus.

Moreover, in a Feb. 29 phone call, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani offered Russian President Vladimir Putin to host the next summit for the Astana format in Iran, according to Iran’s Ambassador to Russia Kazem Jalali, who met today with Chairman of the Federation Council’s Foreign Affairs Committee Sen. Konstantin Kosachev. “Several days ago, Presidents Rouhani and Putin talked over the phone. During the phone conversation, President Rouhani invited President Putin ... suggesting that the next summit in the Astana format in the near future should be held in Iran,” Jalali said. The Astana format, of the three guarantor states for peace in Syria—Russia, Iran, and Turkey—first met in January 2017 in the Kazakhstan capital, Astana (now Nur-Sultan).