Turkey says Idlib deal going as planned, no issue in implementation

The Turkish, Iranian and Azerbaijani foreign ministers gathered in Istanbul on Tuesday for their sixth trilateral meeting.

Speaking at a joint press conference afterwards, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said there is no problem in implementation of the Sochi agreement for Idlib, Syria reached last month between Turkey and Russia.

"Right now, there is no problem regarding implementation of this memorandum," he said.

He said two roads in Syria -- one connecting Aleppo to Hama and another connecting Aleppo to Latakia -- will be opened by the end of the year.

"Everything is on track right now," Çavuşoğlu said.

He said if terror groups or radical groups in Syria try to step over the line, Turkey will be the first to intervene, before anyone else.

Çavuşoğlu added that besides Turkey and Russia, Iran is the country that has supported and contributed the most to the process leading to the Sochi agreement.

After a Sept. 17 meeting in Sochi between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, the two sides agreed to set up a demilitarized zone -- in which acts of aggression are expressly prohibited -- in Syria’s Idlib province.

Under the terms of the deal, opposition groups in Idlib will remain in areas in which they are already present, while Russia and Turkey will carry out joint patrols in the area to prevent a resumption of fighting.

Syria has only just begun to emerge from a devastating conflict that began in 2011 when the Assad regime cracked down on demonstrators with unexpected ferocity.

Russia confirms that Turkey is making great efforts to establish a demilitarized zone in Syria's Idlib, a Kremlin spokesperson said Tuesday.

We do not see a threat of violation for the Russian-Turkish memorandum in this Syrian province, Dmitry Peskov told journalists during a daily conference-call in Moscow.

"Unfortunately, not everything goes according to the plan -- or, according to the ideal plan that was worked out," Peskov said.

"But, as [President Vladimir] Putin said, we accept it understandingly, because indeed the situation there is extremely difficult," he added.

Ankara and Moscow also signed a memorandum of understanding calling for the “stabilization” of Idlib's de-escalation zone, in which acts of aggression are expressly prohibited.