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Peace in our time,
for now.
Looks like President Erdogan has agreed to calm down.The new Russia Turkey agreement on de-escalation in Idlib is a rather abrupt document which is remarkable not only in saying what has been agreed, but in omitting mention of important facts on the ground.
The five hours and 45 minutes of talks between Russia and Turkey produced a seemingly modest set of deliverables. However, it’s clear that none of the three points the presidents signed onto in what is officially called the “Additional Protocol to the Memorandum on Stabilization of the Situation in the Idlib De-Escalation Area” came easy — especially, perhaps, for the Turkish side. Eventually, Putin and Erdogan agreed to “cease all military actions along the line of contact” starting at 12:01 a.m. March 6; establish a security corridor 6 kilometers (nearly 4 miles) deep to the north and 6 kilometers deep to the south from highway M4; and, starting March 15, to launch joint Turkish-Russian patrols along highway M4 from the settlement of Trumba (2 kilometers, or roughly a mile, to the west of Saraqeb) to the settlement of Ain al-Havr.
Perhaps one of the most remarkable things that the protocol didn’t mention was the M5 highway. This may suggest that Turkey had to recognize its current status. If so, this itself may be a key step toward Syrian President Bashar al-Assad taking control over the rest of the country and securing passage to the north. The no-fly zone is also off the table, which is a win for Damascus. The issue of Turkish observation posts south of the M4 is also an interesting matter to watch and is likely to be one of the hardest for the two militaries to settle. The issue of refugees is a big uncertainty at this stage but Putin has now seems to have the cards to package it in his conversations with the Europeans as his personal contribution to halt the flow of new migrants to Europe.
Also when you look at the map of what is left of Idlib under the terrorists you can see that a corridor of 6 km north and south of the M4 will create a rebel held pocket including parts of northern Hama and Latakia provinces, how is that going to be managed?
The agreement does allow Turkey to continue to occupy parts of Idlib of course and also relies heavily on the goodwill of Erdogan in adhering to the agreement which is really an annexe to the 2018 agreement which should have guaranteed the opening of the M5 and M4, so whether this agreement will hold, remains to be seen. Here is the text of the 2018 agreement:Memorandum on Stabilization of the Situation in the Idlib De-escalation Area
The Republic of Turkey and the Russian Federation, as guarantors of the observance of the ceasefire regime in the Syrian Arab Republic, -guided by memorandum on creation of de-escalation areas in the Syrian Arab Republic as of May 4, 2017 and arrangements achieved in the Astana Process -in order to stabilize the situation in the Idlib de-escalation area as soon as possible,
Have agreed on the following:1. The Idlip de-escalation area will be preserved and Turkish observation posts will be fortified and continue to function.
2. The Russian Federation will take all necessary measures to ensure that military operations and attacks on Idlib will be avoided and the existing status quo will be maintained.
3. A demilitarized zone, 15-20 kms deep in the de-escalation area will be established.
4. The delineation of exact lines of the demilitarised zone will be determined through further consultations.
5. All radical terrorist groups will be removed from the demilitarised zone by October 15.
6. All tanks, MLRS, artillery and mortars belonging to conflicting parties will be withdrawn from the demilitarised zone by October 10, 2018.
7. Turkish Armed Forces and the military police of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation will conduct coordinated patrols and monitoring with UAVs along the boundaries of the demilitarised zone.
With a view to ensuring free movement of local residents and goods and restoring trade and economic relations:
8. Transit traffic on the routes M4 (Aleppo-Latakia) and M5 (Aleppo-Hama) will be restored by the end of 2018.
9. Effective measures will be taken for ensuring sustainable ceasefire regime within the Idlib de-escalation area. In this regard, the functions of the Joint Iranian-Russian-Turkish Coordination Center will be enhanced.
10. The two sides reiterated their determination to combat terrorism in Syria in all forms and manifestations.Done in Sochi on September, 17, 2018 in two copies, both in English and Russian having equal legal force.
Signatures:
For the Republic of Turkey
For the Russian FederationThe text of the current agreement is available here
Sorry for repetitions and parts of the quotes that are not quotes but my opinion. I am not sure what happened.
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[ Mod: You deserve an award for the most error-riddled contribution to the forum yet. There were ‘blockquote’ tags dispersed liberally throughout both the quotes and your own writing, with no regard to closing them off; the end-of-line formatting in the quotes had to be redone completely; one paragraph of your own was repeated as an embedded quote; a long section of text was repeated amongst another paragraph; the final URL pointed to the wrong page; you didn’t give a link for the agreement itself; some words were missing from the last item; not to mention the typos (e.g. “ahreement”). The blockquotes were too dominant, so they were reformatted as indented paragraphs instead.I did my best to make sense of it, but it was a complex task. Next time, just repost a corrected version and ask the mods to delete the first attempt. Thanks. ]
Sorry mods for giving you such a complex task and for such an error ridden post. Thanks for the corrections and the ‘award’.
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[ Mod: You’re welcome. ]It looks like Erdogan has been offered an easy option by Putin.
The options narrowed to these
1) Go full on invading Syria Mr.Erdogan.
We will bring the full force of our airforce and our air defences to bare, we will transport s-400 Triumf
to Aleppo and lock-on to Turkish targets.
2) Give the appearance of reasonableness, co-operate with Russia and Syria and we will let you save some face in Public.
3) Withdraw your forces before we destroy them.Easy as in holding a loaded gun to his temple!
It is said by some that this is the decisive work of Shoygu and the military rather than Putin.This analysis by Scott Ritter confirms what I suspected that this was Putin forcing a capitulation from Erdogan, but whether the peace and the agreement will succeed in the long term remains to be seen.
Lebanon in multiple crises.
First they have been in an on-off war with Israel for a long time, Israel overflys Lebanon to fire on Syria, so Lebanon is piggy in the middle, not a happy place.
There is the terrifying debt.
There are the protests and multiple adminstration collapses.
Lebanon is going to default on its international debt.The newly elected PM Hassan Diab seems honest and determined. Here is his full speech announcing the debt default on Eurobonds, debt rescheduling, clamp on corruption and bank restructuring, together with promise for meaningful infrastructural investment. One can only hope.
Lebanon has recorded its first death from coronavirus, according to the health ministry.
Local broadcasters said the patient had been in quarantine since returning from Egypt.
The total number of cases in the country rose to 41 this week.
Strange that no cases have been reported yet in Turkey or Syria,
it is rife in Egypt, Israel, Jordan Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait Greece and Lebanon?Michael
I have also thought it strange but the first defence against rapid dissemination of the virus is the lack of major civilian air traffic and also of border crossings to government controlled areas. However this does not apply to Turkey. Some say that Turkey is suppressing evidence of cases but I am not sure how true that is.Israel is getting ready for lock-down.
Anyone entering the country, from anywhere, has to undergo two weeks self containment in a private home or a government facility.I wonder if they will now stop missile attacks against their close neighbour, Syria.
Syria would seem to be the only country in the Middle East, not yet declared a single Covid-19 victim.
Turkey has now admitted it has a single case.
It is likely Turkey has many hundreds of cases.A novel way of separating terrorists from ‘moderate rebels’ is in the making in Idlib. According to South Front some Syrian sources have information that Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (formerly the official Syrian branch of al-Qaeda), the Turkistan Islamic Party (an al-Qaeda-linked group), the National Front for Liberation (a coalition of Turkish proxies friendly to al-Qaeda) and several smaller groups are going to create a united command center and even declare a formal merger. This means that with one stroke Erdogan has got rid of terrorist in Idlib, It also means that the Turkish army in Idlib can now safely protect the
terroristsfreedom fighters against nefarious attacks. Simple answer to a very complex problems. Erdogan should be nominated for the Nobel peace prize.the Turkistan Islamic Party
are mostly Chinese mohammedam types,
no place being in Syria.So when the war in Syria finally comes to a conclusion.
What will be the conclusion the U.k. government come to, when it becomes glarinly obvious that this so called civil war was in essence done by people who are not Syrians.
When the go through those left alive in North West Syria to find out if they are Syriuan or if they are
Turkish, Chinese, Russian, ex-soviet Russian, Iranian, Iraqi, Jordanian, Israeli, Saudi, Egyptian, French, British, Belgian and so on.
What if 3/4 of the so called opposition are from other lands?
How will that stack up as a Syrian “Civil” War?
How will we answer the world condemnation for the terror we have jointly caused in Syria.
The deaths?
The devastation?
The mutilations?
The Economic warfare, goes on till this day.
But the worst criminal regimes have been Israel & Turkey.The list of people who have no place to be in Syria is quite extensive and include Turkey, US UK France and several other countries. There are also individual fighters smuggled through Turkey smuggled through Turkey
This is another one mapping out where the jihadis come from
But none of these are discussed in the heart rendering documentaries aired by Channel 4 and other documentaries nominated for Oscars.The State Department’s special envoy for Syria has just admitted that the US aims to defend jihadist militants in Idlib against ‘Russian aggression,’ proving once again that the swamp in Foggy Bottom is alive and well.
Russia and the Syrian government “are out to get a military victory in all of Syria,” Ambassador James Jeffrey told reporters on a conference call out of Brussels on Tuesday. To illustrate these methods, Jeffrey cited the US threat to respond “in a very savage military way” against any chemical attacks, which he described as “a favorite tactic of the Syrian regime in making advances.” This is factually untrue, since the alleged attacks always happen after Syrian Army victories, as a pretext for US intervention.
Jeffrey also noted that there are US and coalition troops in parts of Syria – officially there to fight Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS), but in actuality “guarding” the oil fields. He tellingly described their presence as “a complication” for the Syrian government.Donald Trump is now a little worried about Coronavirus.
He is locking his borders and stopping people flying from many countries in to U.S.A., even from NATO countries, like Germany, where thousands of Americans reside. Many American troops also reside in Germany.
I expect Russia can do what it likes in Syria for the next six months.
United states will not be interveining.Is six months long enough for Mr.Putin to seep the terror people into camps?
Michael
There are several ways the US can act as a spoiler, as indeed they have been doing over the last 9 years, without physical presence in Syria, the token forces are enough. Turkey as we saw can heavily mobilise and send vast troops across land borders and be supported by nearby NATO countries either from East Europe or even UK and France if needed.
I think the battle is now shifting to an economic warfare. As the price of crude plummets, US will suffer a major blow both in self sufficiency and in maintaining the high production cost fracking for oil. The economic consequences of Corona virus on the world economy will presumably hit western economies more than it will Russia. As always I think Putin is playing the long game and capitulation may come unexpectedly from unforeseen directions.Whilst the rest of the world is trying to fight the Corvid-19 pandemic, some are still trying to make political capital of the disaster. For example, the Guardian focuses on the supposed coverup of the extent of the epidemic in Iran. Meanwhile Google bans an Iranian App to help people recognise the symptoms of the disease, and of course there is no mention that economic sanctions, sometimes extending to sanctions on importing health related products, will have a major role in the response to the virus in Iran, with increased lethality.
Yes, it would be surprising if even a third of those fighting Assad in Idleb are ethnic Syrians.
I had not heard of this group before.The Imam Bukhari Jamaat (Uzbek: Imom Buxoriy Katibasi, also Katibat Imam al Bukhari) is an Islamist Salafi group fighting in the Syrian Civil War and the War in Afghanistan, composed of primarily Uzbeks, and expressing loyalty to the Taliban movement. The group originally operated only in Syria, where it is allied with other jihadist organisations such as al-Nusra Front and Ahrar ash-Sham, and alongside these other groups it makes up the Army of Conquest, which overran much of Idleb province in north Syria in 2015. Since late 2016, the group has also began to fight against Afghan National Security Forces, and has claimed to have set up training camps in northern Afghanistan.
So what will be done with the Uzbeks/Uyghers/Chechens/Turks
when the “Civil” war is over?
“So what will be done with the Uzbeks/Uyghers/Chechens/Turks
when the “Civil” war is over?”Indeed that is why Erdogan does not want it to end, where will they go. He is trying to export some of the terrorists to Libya but I believe that so far they are Syrians. It is also alleged that some of them are finding their way to Europe as refugees.
Another problem ( not that they need any more) for
The Middle East is the recent collapse of Crude Oil prices, Brent Crude has dropped from
70 $ plus a year ago, to just above 33 $/barrel.
So almost halved in twelve months.
Saudi Arabia needs a price of 80$ plus for their economy to prosper.
Russia can cope with 20$/barrel, to proper.
Saudi Arabia wanted a world reduction in production, to assist in keeping the price higher but Russia would not play ball.
Russia has America in its sights.
The Fracking industry of the U.S.A. cannot make any money at 30$/barrel.
The Hegemony of the pertrodollar is doubt.
This could take The Donald off course in his November presidential election, as Donald has put the American Economy as his success.
As America is now moving into a Coronavirus explosion, so the American Economy will feel a cold breeze.The only country in
The Middle East, to so far, not report any Covid-19 cases, is Syria.All these commotions, can only play to the strengths of Syria and Russia.
The Syrian people, in the Syrian Government parts of Syria, have been tested to their limits over the last nine years, the ones that are left are healthy and strong, they are on the winning side of history.Here is a different take on this price war from South Front.
It seems that initially SA wanted to cut OPEC oil production to keep the price of crude up but Russia refused to comply and this prompted the price war. This would have the advantage of harming both Russia and Iran and increasing the Saudi share of the market.
But I am not convinced that this analysis is correct for the reasons you state. I am sure that Russia can stand a lower price than KSA and I am not sure that KSA would necessarily have the blessing of Trump to continue this measure which would certainly harm the viability of the fracking industry. If the South Front analysis is correct then it is likely to backfire in the long term in my opinion.All primary producers want a high price for their minerals, be it oil, coal, methane or nickel or iron.
However, part of the trick, is having customers and keeping them happy.
No country in the world is used to sitting things out better than Russia, it is what Russia does, hunkering down.
They can sit anything out.
How long can American frackers, sit it out.
The Donald will soon put the squeeze on MBS to turn his taps down.
The Donald will have been appraised of the purpose of Russia, in this matter.
The purpose of Russia in this matter is to fuck America over.
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