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Divergent perspectives

Sep 11,2018 - Last updated at Sep 11,2018

Friday’s Tehran summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his counterparts Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on the ticking time bomb, Idlib, ended up with deep division between the Turkish leader on one hand and his Russian and Iranian counterparts on the other.

Presidents Putin and Rouhani rejected, at the outset, the proposal of President Erdogan to declare a ceasefire in Idlib and the forces deployed in Syria continued to bombard parts of Idlib province, where alleged "terrorists" are present.

The Turkish leader decided to dig in over the Idlib conflict by declaring that "we won't watch from the sidelines and that Turkey will not sit idly by if the world turns a blind eye to the killing of tens of thousands of people".  Erdogan also served notice on Moscow and Tehran that Ankara is not about to take part in any offensive against Idlib. These profound divergent perspectives between the three major regional powers may not succeed at the end of the day in preventing an all-out war over Idlib, but they are grave enough to deny Moscow carte blanche to do whatever it wants in Idlib on the pretext that the area has become a "nest of terrorists" and a "festering abscess". 

Erdogan may not succeed in averting a fullblown war over Idlib but he is surely going to stand in the way of Russian military offensives. Ankara is a major regional power and has a lot to lose if the province, which is so close to its border, becomes the scene of a major conflict, resulting in the killing of hundreds of thousands of civilians and the exodus of a million people to neighbouring countries, Turkey being at the top of the list.

Neither Russia nor Iran see the situation in the same light and appear determined to give Damascus full support to "conquer" the only remaining area of Syria still out of control, whatever the price is in terms of human life.

To his credit, Erdogan would emerge from this division of opinion with Putin and Rouhani on Idlib as the biggest winner.

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