Monday, October 21, 2019

Turkey And Syria Hold Covert Contacts To Avoid Conflict

Turkish army vehicles are moving on a road near the Turkish border town of Ceylanpinar, Sanliurfa province, Turkey, October 18. REUTERS/Stoyan Nenov

Reuters: Wary foes Turkey and Syria hold covert contacts to avoid conflict

ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey is holding covert contacts with Syria’s government to avert direct conflict in northeast Syria where both sides have deployed their armies, Turkish officials say, despite Ankara’s long-standing hostility to President Bashar al-Assad.

Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan backs rebels who fought to topple Assad during Syria’s eight-year civil war. He described Assad as a terrorist and called for him to be driven from power, something which earlier in the war appeared possible.

But Assad’s allies Russia and Iran helped turn the conflict round and with U.S. forces now withdrawing from northeast Syria, Assad’s Russian-backed troops are sweeping back into the region just as Turkish troops move in from the north.

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WNU Editor: We will know more on what will happen in Syria after tomorrow's Putin-Erdogan meeting .... Turkey to take necessary steps in Syria after meeting with Putin: Erdoğan (Hurriyet Daily News).

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

In a gut-wrenching series of videos, Kurds holding signs confronted a convoy of massive U.S. tanks and trucks rolling out of northern Syria and into Iraq.

“Thanks for U.S. people, but Trump betrayed us,” read one sign.

RussInSoCal said...

Good to see that the Kurds and Turks are now dealing with one another. It was an easy prediction that this would happen.

The three main belligerents Russia , Syria and Iran are now forced to confront each other.

Roger Smith said...


And two of them get to clean up the mess which includes how many bombed hospitals by Russia? I've read 7 as of last year with their unguided bombs.

Caecus said...

do you know that they were still being used as hospitals? Would be typical of the jihadis to turn a hospital into a bomb factory or training camp, and then cry about war crimes when it gets bombed

Hans Persson said...

They usually mix them both. Hospital and some kind of HQ.