‘U.S. a Threat to Syria's Territorial Integrity’

Date: 21 September 2018 - 21:29

News ID: ۵۷۵۳۰

MOSCOW (Dispatches) – Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said on Friday that the United States’ control over the eastern bank of the Euphrates river posed the main threat to Syria’s territorial integrity, Interfax news agency reported.
He also said that Russia and Turkey have agreed on the borders of an Idlib demilitarized zone and that Nusra front fighters should leave the zone by mid-October.
In another development, Turkey’s defense ministry said on Friday the borders of the demilitarized zone to be set up in Syria’s Idlib region were agreed in meetings with a Russian committee.
The borders were agreed taking into account the area’s geographical structure and residential areas, it said, adding that the meetings were held between Sept. 19-21 at Turkey’s defense ministry.
Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan and Russia’s Vladimir Putin announced an agreement on Monday under which Russian and Turkish troops will enforce the new demilitarized zone in the Idlib region, from which terrorists will be required to withdraw by the middle of next month.
It is estimated that an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 members of different factions of armed groups, which Russia and Turkey consider terrorists, are active in the volatile province, which is home to around three million inhabitants.
Furthermore, Ankara supports tens of thousands of other militants, describing them as members of the so-called "moderate” armed factions fighting against the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Damascus and Moscow brand all of the armed factions in the region as terrorists.
Damascus has already said that it is preparing for a full-scale military operation against terrorists.
The Turkish government has been trying to persuade its loyal armed groups to evacuate Idlib in a purported bid to avert the anti-terror operation. However, it has not said how it would persuade them to disarm. Previous attempts have failed and the upcoming offensive is causing frictions among militants.
Some 60 percent of the province is said to be controlled by members of the so-called Hayat Tahrir al-Sham Takfiri terrorist group, which is a coalition of different factions of terror outfits, largely composed of Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, formerly known as al-Nusra Front.
Syria has been gripped by foreign-backed militancy since March 2011. The Syrian government says the Israeli regime and its Western and regional allies are aiding terrorist groups wreaking havoc in the country.

U.S. special operations forces walk in the village of Fatisah in the northern Syrian province of Raqqah on May 25, 2016.