{"id":30360,"date":"2019-01-24T02:23:22","date_gmt":"2019-01-24T02:23:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=30360"},"modified":"2019-01-24T02:23:22","modified_gmt":"2019-01-24T02:23:22","slug":"netanyahu-pledges-lethal-response-to-gaza-violence-after-blocking-aid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=30360","title":{"rendered":"Netanyahu pledges \u2018lethal\u2019 response to Gaza violence after blocking aid"},"content":{"rendered":"<div readability=\"59\">\n<p>\nMOSCOW: Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan at a meeting in Moscow on Wednesday vowed to coordinate their actions more closely in Syria.<br \/>\u201cCooperation between Russia and Turkey is a touchstone for Syrian peace and stability,\u201d Erdogan said in translated comments at a joint press conference after their talks, which lasted around three hours.<br \/>\u201cWith our Russian friends we intend to strengthen our coordination even more.\u201d<br \/>\u201cWe agreed how we\u2019ll coordinate our work in the near future,\u201d Putin said, calling the talks which included the countries\u2019 defense ministers \u201ceffective.\u201d<br \/>At the start of their meeting in the Kremlin, Putin addressed Erdogan as \u201cdear friend,\u201d saying that their countries \u201cwork on issues of regional security and actively cooperate on Syria.\u201d<br \/>Erdogan used the same term for Putin and said \u201cour solidarity makes a weighty contribution to the security of the region.\u201d<br \/>The two leaders are on opposite sides of the Syria conflict: Russia provides critical support to the Syrian government, while Turkey has backed rebel groups fighting President Bashar Assad\u2019s forces.<br \/>Despite this, they have worked closely to find a political solution to the seven-year conflict.<br \/>Russia and Turkey have agreed to coordinate ground operations in Syria following US President Donald Trump\u2019s shock announcement last month about pulling 2,000 American troops out of Syria.<br \/>Putin said that if carried out, the withdrawal of US troops from northeastern Syria \u201cwill be a positive step, it will help stabilize the situation in this restive area.\u201d<br \/>Turkey has also welcomed Washington\u2019s planned withdrawal, but the future of US-backed Kurdish militia forces labelled terrorists by Ankara has upset ties between the NATO allies.<br \/>Erdogan had said on Monday he would discuss with Putin the creation of a Turkish-controlled \u201csecurity zone\u201d in northern Syria, suggested by Trump.<br \/>The US-allied Kurds, who control much of the north, have rejected the idea, fearing a Turkish offensive against territory under their control.<br \/>Putin said Wednesday that Russia supports \u201cestablishing dialogue between Damascus officials and representatives of the Kurds.\u201d<br \/>Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov last week said that Damascus must take control of the north.<br \/>The northwestern province of Idlib earlier this month fell under the full control of a jihadist group dominated by Syria\u2019s former Al-Qaeda affiliate.<br \/>The Russian foreign ministry said earlier Wednesday that the situation in the province remained of \u201cserious concern.\u201d<br \/>Putin said that the leaders discussed the situation in Idlib \u201cin great detail today.\u201d<br \/>\u201cWe have a shared conviction that we must continue jointly fighting terrorists wherever they are, including in the Idlib zone,\u201d the Russian leader said.<br \/>Erdogan said that the countries will wage a \u201clengthy fight\u201d in Syria.<br \/>Nearly eight years into Syria\u2019s deadly conflict, the planned US pullout has led to another key step in Assad\u2019s Russian-backed drive to reassert control.<br \/>Kurdish forces who were left exposed by Trump\u2019s pledge to withdraw have asked the Syrian regime for help to face a threatened Turkish offensive.<br \/>The Kremlin hailed the entry by Syrian forces into the key northern city of Manbij for the first time in six years after Kurds opened the gates.<br \/>Moscow plans to organize a three-way summit with Turkey and Iran early this year as part of the Astana peace process, launched by the three countries in 2017.<br \/>Putin said Wednesday the next summit would be held \u201cin the near future\u201d in Russia, saying the leaders still needed to agree the time and location with Iran.<br \/>The last meeting between Putin, Erdogan and Iran\u2019s Hassan Rouhani took place in Iran in September last year with the fate of rebel-held Idlib province dominating the agenda.<br \/>Ties between Russia and Turkey plunged to their lowest level in years in November 2015 when Turkish forces shot down a Russian warplane over Syria.<br \/>But after a reconciliation deal in 2016, relations have recovered at a remarkable speed with Putin and Erdogan cooperating closely over Syria, Turkey buying Russian-made air defense systems and Russia building Turkey\u2019s first nuclear power plant.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>MOSCOW: Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan at a meeting in Moscow on Wednesday vowed to coordinate their actions more closely in Syria.\u201cCooperation between Russia and Turkey is a touchstone for Syrian peace and stability,\u201d Erdogan said in translated comments at a joint press conference after their talks, which lasted&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":30361,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30360","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\/30360","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=30360"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30360\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/30361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}