Russia, Turkey agree to continue joint work on Idlib memorandum implementation

By  Trend

The Russian and Turkish delegations to the G20 summit in Buenos Aires agreed to continue the joint work aimed at implementation of the memorandum on the situation in the rebel-held Syrian province of Idlib, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told reporters, Sputnik reported.

Earlier in the day, Cavusoglu met Russian President Vladimir Putin on sidelines of the G20 summit in Buenos Aires

"We discussed many issues, energy issues, trade, some other issues as well cultural issues. And we also discussed the Idlib issue and, in general, Syria. We should continue Astana format meetings. Our teams will continue working together on the Idlib memorandum to implement the Idlib memorandum and joint patrols of Russian and Turkish troops will also start along the boundaries of Idlib. These are all the issues we discussed and we will continue working together and we should also continue implementing the Idlib deal, which is important for Syria," Cavusoglu said on Saturday.

He added that Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov had proposed to hold trilateral meetings between foreign ministers of Turkey, Russia and Iran on the Syrian issue, particularly, on creation of the Syrian constitutional committee.

"In principle, I said 'yes.' We need to actually call… the first meeting of this [Syrian] constitution committee as soon as possible, possibly by the end of this year as we agreed in Istanbul," Cavusoglu added.

Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin also said that Russia and Turkey are concerned about the situation in the Syrian province of Idlib, hoping that the joint efforts of the defence ministries and special services of the two nations will result in solving the situation and creating a demilitarized zone in the area as soon as possible.

"The situation in Idlib worries us too. We see that our Turkish partners have not yet managed to achieve everything [that is planned], but they are working. We also see that they are working on creating a demilitarized zone,” Putin said at a press conference, when asked about his contacts with Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan on the G20 sidelines.

“We hope that our special services and the defence ministries will resolve this issue via joint efforts as soon as possible,” he added.

The demilitarized zone in Idlib was established on September 17, when Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan agreed on the issue.