Civilians Stuck In Idlib Watch On As Putin And Erdogan Thrash Out Syria Differences

Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and the Russian president, Vladimir Putin , have held face-to-face talks for the first time since the Covid pandemic and discussed the last pocket of Syria that remains outside regime control.

- Bethan McKernan

The leaders met in Russia’s Black Sea resort of Sochi for the summit yesterday. Erdogan is seeking to shore up a ceasefire deal of March last year which ended a bruising assault by Bashar al-Assad and his Russian allies on Turkish-backed fighters in north-west Syria. The fighting last year brought Ankara and Moscow close to direct confrontation and threatened Turkey – which is home to about four million Syrians – with a new wave of refugees. Although ground positions for the most part remain at a stalemate, the truce has been ruptured repeatedly in the last 18 months, with an increase in regime airstrikes and shelling since June.

Ahead of this week’s summit emergency workers in the Idlib area said Syrian air force bombing had again intensified, and the Turkish military had deployed extra troops there .

“The steps we take together regarding Syria carry great importance. The peace there is dependent on Turkey-Russia ties,” Erdogan said as the talks began.

Putin said that negotiations with Turkey were “sometimes difficult” but that the two countries had learned “how to find compromises that are beneficial to both sides”.