Turkey, Iran and Russia sign deal on safe zones in Syria

The agreement calls for the establishment of areas over which president Bashar Al Assad's air force would halt flights. But as it was signed in the Kazakh capital, some members of the Syrian opposition delegation shouted in protest

Russian lead negotiator on Syria Alexander Lavrentyev, Iranian deputy foreign minister Hossein Jaberi Ansari, Kazakh foreign minister Kairat Abdrakhmanov and UN special envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura attend the fourth round of Syria peace talks in Astana on May 4, 2017. Mukhtar Kholdorbekov / ReutersShow less

BEIRUT // Turkey, Iran and Russia on Thursday signed an agreement calling for the setting up of four “de-escalation zones” in Syria – the latest attempt to reduce violence in the war-torn country – and said that president Bashar Al Assad’s air force would halt flights over the designated areas in the country’s north, centre and south.

But as officials from the three countries that back rival sides in the conflict signed the agreement at talks in Kazakhstan, some members of the Syrian opposition delegation shouted in protest and walked out of the conference room in Astana, the Kazakh capital.

The opposition is protesting against Iran’s participation at the conference and its role as a guarantor of the agreement, accusing it of being a party in the war that has killed some 400,000 people and displaced half the country’s population.

“Iran is a country that is killing the Syrian people and the killer cannot be the rescuer,” said Abu Osama Golani, a rebel commander who attended the talks in Astana.

The walkout and the comments underline the huge difficulties of implementing such a deal. The Syrian government has said that although it will abide by the agreement, it will continue fighting “terrorism” wherever it exists, parlance for most armed rebel groups fighting government troops.

An Arabic version of the draft agreement said the aim of the zones was to “put an immediate end to the violence” and “provide the conditions for the safe, voluntary return of refugees” as well as the immediate delivery of relief supplies and medical aid.

A previous ceasefire agreement signed in Astana on December 30 by Russia, Iran and Turkey helped reduce overall violence for several weeks but eventually collapsed. Other attempts at a ceasefire in Syria have ended in failure.

The presidents of Russia and Turkey as well as the US president Donald Trump have recently supported the idea of creating safe zones in Syria.

The United States gave an extremely cautious welcome on Thursday to Moscow’s plan as a step towards ending the Syrian civil war. The state department said Washington hoped the agreement would help stem the violence but expressed concern at Iran’s involvement in negotiating the deal.

Meeting in the Russian resort town of Sochi on Wednesday, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russian president Vladimir Putin expressed hope the Syrian government and rebels would adopt this latest proposal to “de-escalate” the conflict.

Mr Putin said Russian and Syrian government jets would halt flights over the specified zones if all sides respected the ceasefire.

The Kazakhstan agreement calls for delineating zones where front lines between the Syrian government forces and the rebels would be frozen and fighting halted.

The zones include the provinces of Idlib, areas north of Homs, the eastern Ghouta suburbs outside Damascus, and an area in the south of the country, according to a statement leaked by the rebels on Wednesday.

Details of the agreement, however, were not immediately made public and Turkey’s foreign ministry suggested the scope was wider and would include the whole of Idlib province; parts of Latakia, Aleppo, Hama and Homs provinces; parts of Damascus and the East Ghouta region; and also parts of the southern Deraa and Quneitra provinces.

It was not clear how a ceasefire over such a broad, tangled area would be achieved, or whether international observers would be sent to Syria to monitor its implementation.

The head of Russia’s delegation to the talks in Kazakhstan, Alexander Lavrentyev, said the Syrian government would abide by the agreement unless rebel groups inside those areas staged attacks.

“As of the sixth of this month all military operations will be ceased,” Mr Lavrentyev said. “All Syrian flights over these areas will cease.”

He said Turkey, Iran and Russia had agreed on the possibility of allowing international observers in case there is “unanimity” on that issue. He spoke at a press conference shortly after delegations of the three sponsor nations signed the agreement in the presence of the UN’s Syria envoy, Staffan de Mistura.

Military operations are likely to continue against Jabhat Fatah Al Sham, an Al Qaeda-linked group which is active in areas where the fours zones are meant to be.

Iran and Russia are the strongest backers of Mr Al Assad while Turkey is a supporter of opposition groups that have been trying to remove him from power. Turkey and Russia are deeply entangled in the war in Syria, with each country having troops on the ground there.

Osama Abu Zayd, a spokesman for the Syrian rebel factions in Astana, said the zones raised “a number of questions” and that Moscow still had no answers on how to deal with any violations from its ally Damascus or from Iran, which has a number of fighters on the ground in Syria on the government’s side.

“If this [negotiating] table does not lead to solutions, we will return to the gun,” he said.

* Associated Press and Agence France-Presse