In addition to the Syrian crisis, Ankara and Washington have failed to agree on Turkey`s possible purchase of Russian-made defense systems. Referring to the Sochi agreement between Turkey and Russia, he called on all parties to keep their word. “We reached an agreement in Sochi with Russia and we are trying to respect that agreement. We will not hesitate to protect our own forces from threats. No one should test our determination,” he said. Erdoğan hailed the deal as a “historic deal,” while speaking to reporters alongside Putin. “The M5 does not seem to be part of the agreement and this is the first major Turkish concession. While ending the daily fighting is a difficult issue, both sides have put considerable thought into this agreement, so it is a priority to remember,” he said. The Sochi agreement is widely regarded as much broader than Ankara`s agreement with Washington.
As part of a 10-point plan, Turkish-Russian patrols will impose a 10-kilometer Syrian buffer zone on the Turkish border. The agreement was negotiated between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on October 22, 2019 during a diplomatic summit in the Russian resort of Sochi. [1] Negotiations on the agreement lasted six and a half hours. [22] The agreement reached on Tuesday in the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi was aimed at addressing Ankara`s key security concerns. “With this agreement, we have ruled out a major humanitarian crisis in Idlib,” Erdogan told reporters at the press conference with Putin. After months of tensions and threats, the first agreement was reached in mid-August 2019 to establish the buffer zone of northern Syria between the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the United States, on the one hand, and Turkey, on the other. The agreement aimed to limit the Turkish offensive on northern Syria through a process of gradual withdrawal of the SDF, withdrawal of fortifications and joint surveillance of the United States and Turkey, while the area remains under the civilian control of the Autonomous Administration of Northern and Eastern Syria and the military control of the military councils of the Syrian Democratic Forces in accordance with the first agreement on the buffer zone. Despite initial progress in its implementation,[a] Turkey became increasingly dissatisfied and made other demands rejected by the SDF. [8] [9] Last week`s deal between the U.S.
and Turkey did not specify the size of the area, where Turkey also plans to recover up to 2 million of its 3.6 million Syrian refugees, a policy that critics call demographic engineering. Russian military police and Syrian border guards, controlled by President Bashar al-Assad, will facilitate from Wednesday noon the withdrawal of Kurdish fighters and weapons up to 18 miles from their positions on the border, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov said, after their respective presidents announced the deal to reporters. “Russia will certainly take the necessary steps to ensure that the Idlib de-escalation zone is not attacked. Together, we will ensure the detection and prevention of provocations caused by third parties and violations of treaties. The agreement contained the following conditions:[1][7][24][25][26][27][28][29] The agreement was widely seen as good news for Ankara and as a bad outcome for the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which, based on last week`s US agreement, established that Turkey was entitled to a buffer zone on its border at its expense. . . .