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Presidents Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara, April 3, 2018 at a previous meeting. Sputnik / Mikhail Klimentyev / Kremlin via REUTERS

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will travel to Moscow on Tuesday 27 August to meet his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. The visit was hastily organized as the Syrian Army moves into the Idleb region, where Turkish soldiers are present. Last week, a Turkish military convoy was targeted by Russian and Syrian aircraft.

With our correspondent in Istanbul, Anne Andlauer

The situation in Idleb is urgent enough that Recep Tayyip Erdogan has decided to go in person to Moscow after the failure of a telephone conversation with Vladimir Putin on Friday 23 August.

The Turkish president wants the regime of Bashar al-Assad, supported by his Russian ally, to stop its bombing of Idleb , supposedly a " demilitarized zone " since a Russian-Turkish agreement signed in Sochi a year ago. The offensive of the last weeks endangers the safety of the Turkish soldiers deployed in the region on 12 observation posts. One of them, that of Morek, is even surrounded by the Syrian army.

►Also read: The Syrian Army prepares to attack Maaret al-Nohman

For its part, Russia accuses Turkey of not respecting the agreement reached last year. Ankara was to ensure the departure of Idleb rebel groups and jihadists, with their heavy weapons. Vladimir Putin believes that Recep Tayyip Erdogan has not kept his word and tries, without saying so openly, to push Turkey out of Idleb to allow its full recovery by the Syrian regime.

It would be a disaster scenario for the Turkish president, who fears that hundreds of thousands of refugees are flowing to his border.