{"id":15550,"date":"2018-09-18T18:28:11","date_gmt":"2018-09-18T18:28:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=15550"},"modified":"2018-09-18T18:28:11","modified_gmt":"2018-09-18T18:28:11","slug":"syrian-rebels-see-idlib-deal-as-victory-damascus-as-test-for-turkey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=15550","title":{"rendered":"Syrian rebels see Idlib deal as victory, Damascus as test for Turkey"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\nAMMAN\/BEIRUT: Syrian opposition officials praised a deal between Russia and Turkey over Idlib province on Tuesday, saying it had spared the rebel-held region a bloody government offensive and would thwart President Bashar al-Assad\u2019s aim of recovering all Syria.
Damascus, while welcoming the agreement unveiled on Monday, vowed to press on with its campaign to recover \u201cevery inch\u201d of the country. Its ambassador to Lebanon said the deal would test Turkey\u2019s ability to deliver on promises to disarm rebels.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, Assad\u2019s most powerful ally, and Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan agreed at a summit on Monday to create a demilitarized zone in Idlib from which \u201cradical\u201d rebels must withdraw by the middle of next month.
The agreement has diminished the prospects of a Syrian government offensive which the United Nations warned would create a humanitarian catastrophe in the Idlib region, home to about three million people.
The Idlib region and adjoining territory north of Aleppo represents the Syrian opposition\u2019s last big foothold in Syria, where Iranian and Russian military support has helped Assad recover most of the areas once held by the insurgency.
But strong Turkish opposition to an Idlib attack has obstructed government plans for an offensive, and the agreement announced on Monday appears to preserve a role for Turkey in the northwest – something seen as anathema to Assad.
\u201cThe Idlib deal preserves lives of civilians and their direct targeting by the regime. It buries Assad\u2019s dreams of imposing his full control over Syria,\u201d Mustafa Sejari, a Free Syria Army (FSA) official, told Reuters.
\u201cThis area will remain in the hands of the Free Syrian Army and will force the regime and its supporters to start a serious political process that leads to a real transition that ends Assad\u2019s rule,\u201d Sejari said.
The spokesman for the opposition Syrian Negotiations Commission said the deal had halted an offensive for which government forces had been mobilizing in recent weeks, calling it a \u201cvictory for the will for life over the will for death\u201d.
The \u201cscenario of attack is practically excluded, at least for a period of time that is not small, and we hope that it will be permanent,\u201d Yahya al-Aridi told Reuters by telephone.
Syria\u2019s ambassador to Lebanon, in an interview with Lebanon\u2019s al-Jadeed TV, reiterated his government\u2019s distrust of Turkey, a major backer of the Syrian rebellion which has deployed troops across the opposition-held northwest.
\u201cI see it as a test of the extent of Turkey\u2019s ability to commit to implementing this decision. They are under pressure now and I believe they will try,\u201d Ali Abdul Karim said.
\u201cWe do not trust Turkey … but it\u2019s useful for Turkey to be able to carry out this fight to rid these groups from their weapons…Turkey could deal with this responsibility and this would be useful,\u201d he said.
The demilitarized zone will be monitored by Russian and Turkish forces, the leaders said on Monday.
Neither Putin not Erdogan explained how they planned to differentiate \u201cradically-minded\u201d rebels from other anti-Assad groups. It was also not immediately clear how much of the city of Idlib fell within the zone.
Putin said the decision was to establish by Oct. 15 a demilitarized area 15\u201320 km (10-12 miles) deep along the contact line between rebel and government fighters, with radical militants to be withdrawn from the area, including members of the Nusra Front, a jihadist group that now part of the Tahrir al-Sham organization.
Pro-Assad newspaper says Syrian state to return to Idlib<\/strong>
Al-Watan, a pro-Syrian government newspaper, said on Tuesday the zone would stretch for 15 km around Idlib city.
It also said Syrian state institutions would return to Idlib by the end of the year in the final phase of the deal after insurgents hand over all of their heavy weapons and move away from civilian areas.
Citing unidentified diplomatic sources in Moscow, it said any factions rejecting the agreement would be considered enemies \u201ceven of the Turkish army and will be classed as terrorists that must be fought\u201d.
Erdogan, who had feared another cross-border exodus of Syrian refugees to join the 3.5 million already in Turkey, said the deal would allow opposition supporters to stay where they were and avert a humanitarian crisis.
Putin said that by Oct. 10, all opposition heavy weapons, mortars, tanks, rocket systems would be removed from the demilitarized zone, and said this was Erdogan\u2019s suggestion.
Earlier this month, Putin publicly rebuffed a proposal from Erdogan for a ceasefire when the two met along with Iran\u2019s president for a summit in Tehran.
Idlib is held by an array of rebels. The most powerful is Tahrir al-Sham, an amalgamation of Islamist groups dominated by the former Nusra Front – an al Qaeda affiliate until 2016.
Other Islamists, and groups fighting as the Free Syrian Army banner, are now gathered with Turkish backing under the banner of the \u201cNational Front for Liberation\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

AMMAN\/BEIRUT: Syrian opposition officials praised a deal between Russia and Turkey over Idlib province on Tuesday, saying it had spared the rebel-held region a bloody government offensive and would thwart President Bashar al-Assad\u2019s aim of recovering all Syria.Damascus, while welcoming the agreement unveiled on Monday, vowed to press on with its campaign to recover \u201cevery…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":15551,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15550","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15550"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15550\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}