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The United States and the European Union conducted a diplomatic effort on Friday to prevent a Syrian offensive against the last opposition stronghold, while the Turkish president urged his counterparts in Russia and Iran to adopt a ceasefire allowing rebels to lay down their arms.
US diplomats and officials said they feared an imminent attack on the city of Idlib in northwestern Syria, with three million civilian inhabitants. Elite units of the Assad regime's army and Republican guards have been deployed in the area and are now surrounding the city, diplomats said. Russia and Syrian planes began airstrikes this week on Idlib.
"We regard any attack on Idlib as a dangerous escalation of the conflict in Syria," said US Ambassador Nikki Haley. "If Assad, Russia and Iran continue, the consequences will be disastrous."
Meeting in Tehran, the leaders of Turkey, Russia and Iran showed signs of friction, while reaffirming their commitment to fighting terrorism and reaching a political settlement to end the conflict. Moscow and Tehran, the main supporters of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, insisted that the offensive was necessary to eliminate Idlib from "terrorists".
At a joint appearance in front of the cameras, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan twice called for a ceasefire in Idlib, allowing a "reasonable exit". With the economy under pressure, Turkey does not want to welcome more Syrian refugees and fears that its troops on the ground in the Kurdish regions of Syria will be caught in the crossfire.
"Let them lay down their arms for peace to come," said Erdogan. "We need a method to deal with terrorists. It takes time and patience.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said it would be a good idea but it was impossible because militant groups do not have representatives in the negotiations who could promise to stop fighting. Putin said Assad had the legal right to re-establish control throughout Syria.
"There is a large civilian population concentrated in the region of Idlib and we should certainly take it into account," Putin said, according to Russian news agencies. But he added: "Attacks are being conducted using unmanned aerial vehicles, and shelling is going on from there, and we can not ignore it."
As the three leaders held their summit, many crowds of Syrians gathered at various locations in the provinces of Idlib and northern Aleppo to protest against Assad's regime and its international allies at the protests that took place. marked the beginning of the conflict. Considerable protests became increasingly rare as the Syrian conflict, which began as a public uprising, became more bloody.
In the United States and Tehran, diplomats and officials presented the idea of an "attempted separation" as an alternative to a military offensive, allowing armed rebels to return their arms and separate themselves from terrorist groups, assuring thus the safety of civilians.
The Security Council held three separate meetings on Thursday and Friday under the presidency of the United States and the European Union. and focused on Idlib, discussing threats of chemical weapons attacks, the humanitarian crisis and a political settlement with Syrian opposition groups.
The United States estimates that there are approximately 30,000 terrorist fighters among the three million inhabitants of Idlib. Turkey has so far been unable to persuade the radical militant groups of Idlib, of which they are members or former members of Al Qaeda, to abandon their weapons.
In recent months, the province has received a wave of activists who have been taken to evacuation camps with the Assad regime in recent months, thanks to Russian planes and commanders of the Revolutionary Guards.
Nearly half of Idlib's population of nearly three million has arrived there after being uprooted by fighting elsewhere in Syria. An offensive in populated areas and camps for displaced families could be long and bloody.
The United States, which has troops in northeastern Syria, said they would only interfere if the Assad regime used chemical weapons. Jim Jeffrey, the State Department's special representative for the Syrian engagement, said on Thursday that Washington had "a lot of evidence" that the Syrian government was planning a chemical attack in Idlib, but he did not say.
Turkey is straddling a difficult geopolitical division between the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, of which it is a member, and the powers that often act against Western interests. While its relations with the United States and Europe have deteriorated, Ankara has moved more towards Moscow and Tehran.
It's a difficult alliance. The three countries share the skepticism of the United States and have all been sanctioned by the Trump administration. For Putin, keeping Mr. Erdogan on his side is a way to embrace NATO and create new tensions in Turkey's western alliances. But the countries are fundamentally opposed in Syria, where Russia and Iran played a decisive role in keeping Assad, a sworn enemy of Turkey, in power.
Last year, Iran, Turkey and Russia agreed to create de-escalation zones in Syria – including in Idlib, where Turkey has a dozen or so observation points – but this has not prevented bombing.
The Syrian ambassador to the UN, Bashaar Jaffari, told the Security Council Friday that his country was not indebted to the Astana agreement, an agreement concluded in September 2017 with Russia, Iran and Turkey for create de-escalation zones in some countries. Syrian regions, including Idlib, for six months. Mr. Jaffari stated that the agreement was supposed to be "temporary" and that the armed groups had violated the terms of the agreement.
Representatives of Syrian opposition groups at the European Council meeting, hosted by the EU, called on the international community, including Russia, to stand with the Syrian people and not the regime and to to work towards a political settlement.
"We need the political will of all of you sitting in the room to defend the Syrian people. Stability can not happen without a political settlement, "said Hadi Al-Bhara, of the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces.
-David Gauthier-Villars in Istanbul, Aresu Eqbali in Tehran, James Marson and Thomas Grove in Moscow contributed to this article.
Write to Farnaz Fassihi at [email protected] and Sune Engel Rasmussen at [email protected]
