Putin announces agreement on "the basis of a permanent solution" in Syria

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Monday that his country has laid with Turkey and Iran the basis for a permanent solution in Syria, while Iranian President Hassan Rouhani rejected any foreign presence in Syrian territory without an official invitation.

Speaking at a three-way summit on Syria with his Turkish and Turkish counterparts, Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Iranian Hassan Rouhani, Putin stressed that the course of the Astana negotiations, guaranteed by Russia, Turkey and Iran, is the most effective mechanism that contributes to the process of finding a solution in Syria.

He pointed to the need to achieve stability in the Syrian territories through joint efforts and the low level of violence, expressing concern about the situation in the area of ​​de-escalation in the province of Idlib (northwest) and the northeastern region of Syria.

Unity of Syria
In turn, Erdogan said, "We are in full agreement in our quest for a political agreement that preserves the political unity of Syria and the territorial integrity of Syria," calling for the need to assume greater responsibilities to resolve the crisis there.

He pointed out that Turkey stood with the Syrian people in the most difficult and difficult times, and that Ankara inflicted significant defeats on terrorist organizations through the operations of the Euphrates Shield and Olive Branch, stressing that his country will continue to make efforts within the framework of the tripartite summit to reach a new stage by "draining the swamp of terrorism in the east of the Euphrates. ".

Foreign presence
For his part, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said that "the presence of US forces in an independent country and a member of the United Nations such as Syria threatens the territorial integrity and national sovereignty."

"US forces should be out immediately," said Rouhani, whose country plays an important role on the battlefield in Syria.

The tripartite summit on Syria focused on Idlib province, where heavy fighting between the Russian-backed regime forces and the armed opposition forced hundreds of thousands to flee and threatened to end the faltering truce.

The summit comes at a time when Turkey called on Russia to pressure the Syrian regime to stop its operations for more than two months in areas covered by the reduction of escalation, especially rural Idlib and Hama.

This is the fifth tripartite summit of Putin, Erdogan and Rouhani.The three regional powers are the “guarantors” of the Astana peace process launched in Kazakhstan in January 2017 to end the Syrian war and aim to complement UN-led efforts to resolve the conflict.

Constitutional Commission
Moscow is seeking to press for a breakthrough in the formation of a constitutional committee that the United Nations is set up to oversee the next phase of the political settlement.

Putin said the decision to set up a committee to draft a new constitution for Syria had been made at the conference and that "this committee should start its work immediately in Geneva."

Turkey has concerns about Syria, which has repeatedly threatened to launch a cross-border operation against Syrian Kurdish factions, which it considers allied with Kurdish fighters in its territory.

Turkey is deploying 12 checkpoints in Idlib and its environs in implementation of the Sochi agreement reached a year and a half ago to establish a demilitarized zone in the province to prevent a massive Syrian military operation.

But Turkish checkpoints face increasing risks, with one separated from the rest of Idlib when regime forces advanced last month.

Russian air strikes continued in the region despite the recent ceasefire agreement between Ankara and Moscow signed on August 31.