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SYRIA-CONFLICT-IDLIB-ASSAD
Syria’s Assad says Idlib deal ‘temporary measure’: state media
DAMASCUS, Oct 8, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad on
Sunday said that a Russia-Turkey deal for the last major rebel bastion of
Idlib was a “temporary measure”, state news agency SANA reported.
“The agreement is a temporary measure through which the state has realised
many achievements on the ground starting with stemming the bloodshed,” SANA
reported the president as saying at a meeting of the central committee of his
Baath party.
The deal reached on September 17 betwen regime ally Moscow and rebel
backer Ankara aims to avert a massive regime assault on Idlib province and
adjacent areas, by creating a 15 to 20-kilometre (9-12 mile) buffer zone
ringing the country’s last major rebel stronghold.
“This province and other Syrian territory still under terrorist control
will return to the Syrian state,” SANA reported Assad as saying, employing
the regime’s usual term for both rebels and jihadists.
Assad’s regime has retaken large parts of Syria from opposition fighters
and jihadists since Russia intervened militarily by its side in 2015.
More than half of the Idlib region is held by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, an
alliance led by Syria’s former Al-Qaeda affiliate, while Turkey-backed rebels
hold most of the rest.
Syria’s war has killed more than 360,000 people since starting in 2011
with the repression of anti-government protests, according to the Syrian
Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring group.
BSS/AFP/MSY/0856 hrs