Turkey is concerned that a U.S.-Russian plan to stop fighting in Syria will provide an advantage for government forces and their backers while being indecisive on the terms for the Syrian opposition, President Tayyip Erdogan said on Wednesday. The ceasefire plan was subsequently accepted, with various caveats and conditions attached, by the Syrian government, the US- and Saudi-backed negotiating body for the Western-backed anti-Assad opposition, the High Negotiating Council, and Turkey.
Advertisement
It also accuses the Syrian Kurdish forces of working alongside Russian Federation, which strongly opposes Ankara’s key strategic aim of ousting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Turkey on Tuesday said it was not optimistic over the implementation of a Syria ceasefire announced by the United States and Russian Federation, threatening to keep up retaliatory artillery strikes against Syrian Kurdish fighters.
The US government and the establishment media are also concealing the fact that the only significant anti-Assad military forces on the ground in Syria are precisely ISIS and al-Nusra.
The statement says Putin and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani talked about the cease-fire in Syria and both “stressed the importance of a further cooperation between Russian Federation and Iran on Syrian peace settlement, including a continuation of a resolute fight against the IS, Jabhat al-Nusra and other terrorist groups from the UN Security sanctions list”.
Daesh and the Nusra Front are excluded from the cessation of hostilities.
The former US diplomat also believes that enforcing the cease fire will be “extremely hard”. Spokesman Jens Laerke of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said the deliveries were “under way” to help some 20,000 people in Moadamiya and another 10,000 people in Kfar Batna. Turkey considers the PYD a terrorist organization due to its ties with the terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). Kurtulmus argued that the bomber had indeed entered Turkey from PYD-controlled Syria in the summer of 2014.
The PKK, which says it is fighting for autonomy for Turkey’s large ethnic Kurdish minority, has sealed off entire districts of some towns and cities in the southeast and declared autonomy, prompting the security forces to step up their operations.
Syria’s opposition has indicated it is ready for a two-week truce, saying it is a chance to test the seriousness of the Syrian government’s commitment to a cessation of hostilities.
The agreement, engineered by the USA and Russian Federation, is set to take effect at midnight Friday local time.
Advertisement
Analysts said the deal may be simply unworkable, rebels on the ground doubted the regime’s goodwill and many civilians expected their hopes to once again be dashed.
