{"id":19412,"date":"2018-10-22T11:24:33","date_gmt":"2018-10-22T11:24:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=19412"},"modified":"2018-10-22T11:24:33","modified_gmt":"2018-10-22T11:24:33","slug":"normality-returns-for-some-in-damascus-after-fighting-ends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=19412","title":{"rendered":"Normality returns for some in Damascus after fighting ends"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\nANKARA: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Emmanuel Macron, and Russian President Vladimir Putin are expected to attend a critical four-way summit on Syria in Istanbul next Saturday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nThey will discuss recent developments in the war-torn country as well as projections for a political settlement.<\/p>\n

\nExperts have underlined the importance of this summit in providing a strong push for key EU countries to work together with regional players to end the years-long conflict in Syria as it will gather the four countries\u2019 leaders at the highest level.<\/p>\n

\nThe summit will focus on the recent developments in the opposition-held northwestern province of Idlib, and the parameters of a possible political settlement.<\/p>\n

\nThe ways for preventing a new refugee inflow from Idlib into Europe via Turkey, which is home to about 3.5 million Syrian residents, following a possible offensive by the Assad regime will also be raised as a topic that mainly concerns France and Germany and pushes them to work more closely with Turkey and Russia.<\/p>\n

\nThe summit will also aim at \u201charmonizing joint efforts for finding a lasting solution to the conflict,\u201d presidential spokesperson Ibrahim Kalin announced on Friday.<\/p>\n

\nGermany and France welcomed the Turkey-Russia deal on Idlib that had set Oct. 15 as the deadline for removing all radical groups from a demilitarized zone in the province. Although the withdrawal of some opposition groups from the zone has not been accomplished in due time, Ankara and Moscow have agreed to extend the deadline for Idlib, which is still a strategic area where the opposition holds out.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cTurkey and Russia want the status quo for Idlib. Although the jihadists have not withdrawn from the demilitarized zone, Russia is turning a blind eye,\u201d said Fabrice Balanche, an associate professor and research director at the University of Lyon II.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cTurkey will make some efforts to save face. Turkish proxies have withdrawn because Turkey pays wages, so they must obey, but for the jihadists it is more complicated,\u201d he told Arab News.<\/p>\n

\nAccording to Balanche, without the complicity of Turkey, the Syrian regime cannot take over the north of the country.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cIn exchange, Turkey wants a buffer zone in the north, all along its border. The main objective is, of course, to eliminate the Syrian Kurdish YPG from the border as it has already done in Afrin. A secondary objective is to protect its opposition allies and the Turkmen minorities, many in the province of Idlib but also between Azaz and Jarablus,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\nBut the summit also shows that these four countries need each other in the Syrian theater as each of them has stakes regarding the settlement of the crisis.<\/p>\n

\nEmre Ersen, a Syria analyst at Marmara University in Istanbul, said the main goal of the summit is to provide a major diplomatic boost to the ongoing Astana and Sochi peace processes, which have so far been led mainly by Turkey, Russia and Iran.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cA second and maybe even more important goal is to include France and Germany in the reconstruction efforts in Syria once the civil war is over,\u201d he told Arab News.<\/p>\n

\nConsidering the cost of the reconstruction, estimated at about $400 billion, Ankara, Moscow and Tehran are not ready to take this enormous financial burden without the financial support of the West, Ersen said.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cBoth Paris and Berlin hope that Ankara\u2019s ongoing efforts to prevent a humanitarian crisis in Idlib can be successful. If the settlement in Idlib does not work, everybody is aware that this may lead to a big refugee crisis for both Turkey and Europe once again,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\nMartina Fietz, deputy spokeswoman for the German government, told a news conference in Berlin that her country is also hopeful about the forthcoming summit\u2019s potential contribution to the stabilization of Idlib\u2019s de-escalation zone.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cProgress in the UN-led political process, in particular the commencement of the work of the constitutional commission, will be discussed,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\nThe chief foreign policy advisers of the quartet have met in Istanbul in recent weeks to discuss the agenda of the summit.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ANKARA: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Emmanuel Macron, and Russian President Vladimir Putin are expected to attend a critical four-way summit on Syria in Istanbul next Saturday.\u00a0 They will discuss recent developments in the war-torn country as well as projections for a political settlement. Experts have underlined the importance…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":19413,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19412","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\/19412","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=19412"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19412\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19413"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}