The Turkish armed contingent is trapped in the Idlib de-escalation zone due to the spread of coronavirus COVID-19 infection in the region.
As News Front previously reported, in February, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan decided on a risky military venture in Idlib, Syria. By sending troops in support of illegal armed groups, he tried to force the Syrian army to retreat. However, the operation got bogged down, NATO refused to provide support, and Russia made it clear that it would continue to help liberate Syria.
Erdogan eventually gauged his ambitions and went to talks with Russian leader Vladimir Putin on March 5. Then the parties came to an agreement to settle the situation, and a silence regime was introduced in Idlib. Nevertheless, even after that Turkey did not stop increasing its forces on Syrian territory, but now Ankara has made adjustments to the Coronavirus pandemic.
Turkey has recorded a significant increase in the number of infected people. In the past 24 hours alone, more than 3,100 new infections have been detected. At the same time, the total number has already exceeded 27,000. The number of lethal outcomes is about 600.
Against this background, the Ministry of National Defense of Turkey had to reduce to a minimum the movement of armed personnel in the so-called “operation zones” in Syria. Military and civilian specialists in Idlib, in fact, were cut off and cannot operate without the decree of the Minister of Defense Hulusi Akar.
“The movement of the army and personnel is minimized, if not mandatory,” the Turkish agency stresses.
At the same time, Ankara is sending medical personnel to Idlib to help its fighters, who will “provide training to fight serious respiratory diseases”.