Syria: "Vladimir became indispensable to Erdogan as to Assad, as to all their neighbors"

While Recep Tayip Erdogan and Vladimir Putin signed an agreement yesterday to secure the Syrian border, Vincent Hervouet analyzes the evolution of Russian influence in this region of the world.

In Sochi, Russia, Recep Tayip Erdogan and Vladimir Putin signed an agreement yesterday to secure the Syrian border. They will do it together and the Kurds have a week to retreat.

Putin looks modest when he gloats. Erdogan boasts of a historic agreement. The Russian is satisfied with a decisive agreement, with a half smile. They agreed on the control of the Syrian border. On both sides of the sector that has been carved by the Turkish army with guns, there will be Russian and Turkish patrols. The Kurdish peshmerga have six days to pack. The army of Bashar al-Assad, whom they had called for help, will drive them back to the door. Thus ends the Rojava, the principality of the Syrian Kurds.

Russia won the war, she is now a peace-maker

Glory to Vladimir became indispensable to Erdogan as to Assad, as to all their neighbors: Iranians, Egyptians, Israelis, Eastern Christians. François Hollande commented with spite, it is "the victory of all those which one did not want to see triumph". There is no winner without the confession of the vanquished. The former President writes history books, the others continue to write history. And Putin does better: he rewrites it. He rewinds the film. It erases the humiliation of the Yeltsin years. Today, it hosts on the shores of the Black Sea dozens of heads of state for the first summit Russia-Africa. After Sultan Erdogan, the continent has an appointment in Sochi. The same people who used to go to La Baule or Cannes to take lessons. What a revenge!