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Idleb (Syria) at the summit menu Erdogan, Putin and Rohani in Ankara

The Turkish President is hosting this Monday, September 16 in Ankara his Russian and Iranian counterparts for a new summit devoted to Syria. The stakes are high for Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who will try to save the agreement signed last year about the province of Idleb, the last great stronghold in the hands of rebel and jihadist groups.

from our correspondent in Istanbul,

Recep Tayyip Erdogan receives at home, but he is not in a position of strength. In September 2018, he had committed - without knowing how - to evacuate from Idleb the jihadists of the group Hayat Tahrir al-Cham, former Syrian branch of al-Qaeda , in exchange for a postponement of the planned offensive by the regime of Bashar al-Assad and his Russian partner. A year later, jihadists control the essentials of Idleb and Syrian and Russian planes bomb this province that is home to three million civilians.

The emergency in Idleb

Recep Tayyip Erdogan calls for an end to the attacks, which endanger the lives of Turkish soldiers deployed in Idleb. But the equation is insoluble: the president would both maintain his army on the spot while preventing a confrontation with the Syrian army, stem a new influx of refugees while avoiding that the jihadists do not turn against Ankara. He clings to hope: the desire of Russian President Vladimir Putin to keep good relations with him. In Idleb, Recep Tayyip Erdogan is negotiating with his Russian counterpart . But elsewhere in Syria, he cooperates with the Americans.

In discussion also the situation in the north of Syria

For the two offensives that the Turkish army has carried out in northern Syria in the last three years, Tayyip Erdogan had received the green light from Vladimir Putin whose main strategy, as far as Turkey is concerned, is to move him away from more possible of the Western camp, of the United States in particular. This worked rather well, especially since at the same time, Washington has allied with the Kurdish forces to fight Daesh while Ankara sees them as a terrorist group.

But to prevent these Kurdish forces from establishing themselves permanently on Turkey's borders, east of the Euphrates River, Recep Tayyip Erdogan has no choice but to reach an agreement with the United States, which has soldiers on the spot alongside Kurdish fighters. Last month, Ankara and Washington agreed on the creation of a zone called "security" whose contours are unclear and the implementation in practice ... to say the least complicated.

Erdogan's threats

The Turkish president is thus forced to the great diplomatic gap. But to avoid appearing in a weak position, he multiplies the threats and resorts to blackmail. In the face of the Americans, he is threatening a military offensive against their Kurdish allies if the famous security zone is not in place by the end of the month. To the Europeans, he promises to let hundreds of thousands of refugees go by, and thus recreate the crisis that gave rise to the March 2016 migration agreement with the European Union. Turkish Vice President Fuat Oktay said bluntly last week: " If the crisis in Idleb continues and causes a new influx of refugees, Europe has no chance to escape. "

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