{"id":20777,"date":"2018-11-02T06:23:36","date_gmt":"2018-11-02T06:23:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=20777"},"modified":"2018-11-02T06:23:36","modified_gmt":"2018-11-02T06:23:36","slug":"nusra-militants-trying-to-wreck-deal-over-idlib-buffer-zone-russia-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=20777","title":{"rendered":"Nusra militants trying to wreck deal over Idlib buffer zone, Russia says"},"content":{"rendered":"<div data-io-article-url=\"http:\/\/www.arabnews.com\/node\/1397811\/middle-east\" readability=\"101\">\n<p>\nMOSCOW: Russia\u2019s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has accused Nusra militants in Syria\u2019s Idlib Province of trying to wreck a Russo-Turkish initiative to create a demilitarized zone in the insurgent-held region, the Interfax news agency reported.<\/p>\n<p>\n\u201cThere are still Nusra militants in Idlib who are not stopping their attempts to wreck the implementation of the memorandum that was agreed between Russia and Turkey,\u201d Maria Zakharova, a spokesman for the ministry, was cited as saying.<\/p>\n<p>\nInterfax quoted Zakharova as telling a news briefing in Moscow that the militants were continuing to shell Syrian regime forces in the south of the province and to the northwest of Hama.<\/p>\n<p>\nThe agreement forged in September between Russia, which is Syrian President Bashar Assad\u2019s most powerful ally, and Turkey, which backs the insurgents, staved off a major regime offensive into the opposition-held region in northwest Syria.<\/p>\n<p>\nTerrorists on Thursday killed four pro-regime fighters in Idlib province, a monitor said.<\/p>\n<p>\nAt dawn on Thursday, extremists from Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, a faction led by former Al-Qaeda militants, attacked a regime position in the east of the province, said the Britain based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.<\/p>\n<p>\n\u201cFour regime fighters were killed in the assault, and a member of HTS also died,\u201d said Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman.<\/p>\n<p>\n\u201cThere is an ongoing exchange of artillery fire between the two parties\u201d in land that is part of the planned demilitarised zone, he added.<\/p>\n<p>\nThe agreement between Russia and Turkey to create the buffer zone was aimed at staving off a regime troops\u2019 assault on the province.<\/p>\n<p>\nAs set out under the deal, insurgents announced they had withdrawn heavy artillery from the zone, but extremists including HTS refused to leave the area.<\/p>\n<p>\nArtillery fire by regime forces killed at least seven civilians in Idlib on Friday last week, the Observatory said.<\/p>\n<p>\nAssad\u2019s Foreign Minister Walid Muallem expressed dissatisfaction this week with the implementation of the agreement, and criticized Turkey for shortcomings.<\/p>\n<p>\n\u201cTerrorists are still present in this sector with their heavy weapons,\u201d he was quoted as saying by the pro-regime SANA news agency on Monday, referring to the buffer zone.<\/p>\n<p>\n\u201cThis indicates that Turkey does not want to respect its obligations,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p>\nSyria\u2019s war has killed more than 360,000 people since it erupted in 2011 with the brutal repression of anti-government protests.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>MOSCOW: Russia\u2019s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has accused Nusra militants in Syria\u2019s Idlib Province of trying to wreck a Russo-Turkish initiative to create a demilitarized zone in the insurgent-held region, the Interfax news agency reported. \u201cThere are still Nusra militants in Idlib who are not stopping their attempts to wreck the implementation of the memorandum&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":20778,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20777","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\/20777","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=20777"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20777\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/20778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}