{"id":17421,"date":"2018-10-04T23:23:43","date_gmt":"2018-10-04T23:23:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=17421"},"modified":"2018-10-04T23:23:43","modified_gmt":"2018-10-04T23:23:43","slug":"lebanons-hariri-expects-new-cabinet-in-7-10-days-tv-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=17421","title":{"rendered":"Lebanon\u2019s Hariri expects new cabinet in 7-10 days \u2014 TV interview"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\nBEIRUT: The clock is ticking to implement a Russian-Turkish deal for the Syrian opposition region of Idlib, but its terms remain hazy and little has changed on the ground.<\/p>\n

\nThe accord, reached on Sept. 17, aims to stave off a massive regime assault on the last major opposition bastion by creating a 15 to 20 km buffer zone ringing the area.<\/p>\n

\nAll fighters in the demilitarized zone must withdraw heavy arms by Oct. 10, and radical groups must leave by Oct. 15. But as the deadline draws closer, there has been no indication either condition is being implemented.<\/p>\n

\nThe main Ankara-backed opposition alliance, the National Liberation Front, cautiously welcomed the agreement but has denied beginning to pull out any of its heavy weapons.<\/p>\n

\nAnd the region\u2019s most powerful force, the extremist-led Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, has yet to announce its stance.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cOn the ground, essentially, there\u2019s no movement. There\u2019s no handover of weapons or territory,\u201d said Haid Haid, a research fellow at the London-based Chatham House.<\/p>\n

\nWhat is happening, however, is a flurry of negotiations among Russia, Turkey, opposition groups and hard-liners to hash out the accord\u2019s finer details and bring Idlib\u2019s extremists on board.<\/p>\n

\nThe thorny questions being discussed include precisely where the buffer would be established, who would patrol it, and whether weapons systems would be simply re-stationed in other opposition zones or handed over to Ankara.<\/p>\n

\nOnce those stumbling blocks are sorted out, Haid said, implementation can be quick.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cIn my view, the deal will be implemented on time, but with some amendments,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\nThe deal was announced in the Russian resort of Sochi after a tete-a-tete between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan.<\/p>\n

\nLast month\u2019s Idlib deal was welcomed by world powers, relief agencies and the UN, which all hoped it would avert a feared humanitarian catastrophe of unprecedented proportions.<\/p>\n

\nBut apart from deadlines, very few details were made public.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cOne possibility is that Turkey and Russia already agreed on all the details but did not announce them,\u201d said Haid.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThe second possibility is they agreed on the broad outlines without details,\u201d allowing Ankara to untangle the knots with Idlib\u2019s factions, he said.<\/p>\n

\nOn Wednesday, Putin said Moscow was still \u201cworking in solidarity with Turkey\u201d on Idlib.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWe see that they, too, have the most serious attitude toward the deal and are fulfilling their obligations,\u201d he said. Putin said the demilitarized zone in Idlib was effective and no major military actions are planned in the region.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cI have every reason to believe that we will achieve our goals,\u201d Putin said, referring to the zone.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cAnd that means, no large-scale military actions are expected there,\u201d he said. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\u201cMilitary action for the sake of military action is unnecessary,\u201d said the president.<\/p>\n

\nHe spoke hours after Ankara dispatched a new military convoy of vehicles and troops into northern Syria to be stationed at the monitoring posts it already operates in the area. The burden of implementing the agreement has fallen on Turkey, which shares a border with Idlib province and has long backed rebel forces there.<\/p>\n

\nThe toughest task would be bringing terroristsincluding HTS, led by former Al-Qaeda members, on board.<\/p>\n

\nHTS, terrorists from the Turkestan Islamic Party (TIP) and current Al-Qaeda outfit Hurras Al-Deen control more than two-thirds of the planned buffer zone.<\/p>\n

\nWhile Hurras Al-Deen has rejected the deal, HTS and TIP have yet to take a position \u2014 which Haid sees as a sign that they could be negotiating with Turkey for better terms.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cNo news could be more positive than negative,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThis area is very important for HTS. It has economic benefits and guarantees the group\u2019s sustainability. If it hands over this area, what does it still have?\u201c<\/p>\n

\nMoscow has accused HTS and other \u201cradical fighters\u201d of trying to torpedo the accord.<\/p>\n

\nForeign ministry spokesman Maria Zakharova said Thursday they \u201cfear finding themselves isolated by the Russian-Turkey deal, and are committing all sorts of provocations and aggravating the situation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nEven as it works to persuade heavyweight HTS, Ankara is in talks with other rebel groups on their objections to the deal.<\/p>\n

\nAfter initially welcoming the accord, the NLF refused any Russian presence in the buffer zone, which Putin said would be monitored by Russian military police and Turkish troops.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThere\u2019s no progress on the deal, except the issue of the patrols. They will only be Turkish,\u201d said NLF spokesman Naji Mustafa.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cFor the demilitarised zone, our heavy weapons aren\u2019t in this area anyway,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\nOther rebels fear that the accord could cost them their last major stronghold.<\/p>\n

\nJaish Al-Izza, a formerly US-backed faction, rejected the accord on the grounds that it ate away at rebel but not regime territory to create the buffer zone.<\/p>\n

\nDamascus, for its part, still hopes to recapture every inch of Syrian territory.<\/p>\n

\nIn an interview aired Tuesday, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem said he hoped the deal would prove to be a \u201cstep toward the liberation of Idlib.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BEIRUT: The clock is ticking to implement a Russian-Turkish deal for the Syrian opposition region of Idlib, but its terms remain hazy and little has changed on the ground. The accord, reached on Sept. 17, aims to stave off a massive regime assault on the last major opposition bastion by creating a 15 to 20…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":17422,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17421","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\/17421","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=17421"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17421\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}