The downing of the Russian Il-20
On September 17th, 2018, Israel decided to launch missiles in Latakia, having informed representatives of the Russian military command in Syria only one minute before the attack was carried out. In the course of the attack, a Russian plane was downed west of the city of Baniyas in the Tartus province.
The Russian Ministry of Defence held a briefing on Sunday to discuss the circumstances of the crash. The Department conferred responsibility for death of 15 Russian servicemen on the Israeli air force.
According to the Ministry, the Israeli side has violated arrangements and didn’t warn Russian command beforehand about carrying out the operation. Besides this, the Israeli officer who did report the attack misinformed the Russian military concerning the area of the attack, and thus there was no opportunity to move the Il-20 to safety.
According to the official representative of the Ministry of Defence Igor Konashenkov, at 21:40 four Israeli planes launched an attack against industrial facilities in the province Latakia with GBU-39 air bombs.
As experts note, the attack coincided with the negotiations of the leaders of Turkey and Russia who were discussing bringing an end to the Syrian conflict. Thus, Israel was actively trying to break the consensus of the countries which with great difficulty are working to restore Syria from ruins and decisely conclude the struggle with terrorist groups. Moreover, Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman said on Sunday that Israel’s Syria policy remains unchanged.
It is favorable countries like Israel to support chaos and instability in Syria in order to achieve their own geopolitical agenda in the region.
Agreement on Idlib
Erdoğan and Putin’s meeting in Sochi led to an agreement on the situation in Idlib, the situation in the Syrian government was the focus of attention during the talks. One of the most important decisions was to create the demilitarized zone.
“We will make every effort to eliminate radical groups in Idlib. Russia and Turkey will cooperate to secure the territory”, President Erdoğan said.
As Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu detailed later, Turkey will deploy more troops in Syria’s northwestern Idlib province following a deal signed by Ankara and Moscow which entails setting up a demilitarized zone in the country’s last rebel stronghold, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said.
“We have considered a situation in Idlib in details and have decided to create along the line of contact of the armed opposition with government troops by October 15, 2018 the demilitarized zone of 15-20 km in depth with a conclusion of radical fighters from there, including Jabhat al-Nusra”, Putin has explained.
Until October 10, according to Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s proposal, the countries play to wind down employment of heavy weapons (including tanks, rocket launchers, also guns and mortars of all opposition groups).
“We have agreed on the establishment of a weapons-free zone between the opposition- and [Assad] regime-controlled areas,” President Erdoğan said.
Turkish and Russian services will control a situation in the demilitarized zone together. Thus, the axis of Ankara-Tehran-Moscow every month becomes stronger, and, thanks to these three countries, Syria has the chance to finally emerge victorious from many long years of civil war.
Terrorist attack in Iran
One more curious, as well as tragic “coincidence” – is terrorist attack in Iran (a member of three countries working to achieve peace in Syria). On September 22 in Iran, a terrorist attack was carried out during the countries’ military parade. At least 29 people were killed, and more than 50 were wounded in the city of Ahwaz.
Fighters opened fire at the spectator stands and at a column of the military. The audience at first believed the shots to have been fired as a part of the parade, and when they understood that the attack was real, serious panic began. In total, the shots lasted for about 10 minutes. It has been reported that there were four attackers, two of which were killed in the course of the attack.
The president of Iran, Hassan Rouhani, has accused the United States of sponsoring the terrorist attack on the military parade. The Iranian leader said that the USA seeks to create an unsafe situation in the Islamic Republic.
It later became known that the terrorist attack was undertaken by a local terrorist group, likely connected with extremist organizations in Saudi Arabia.
Thus, it is possible to assume that the tragic events in Syria and Iran can be connected directly with progress of negotiations between Turkey, Iran and Russia (the summit on September 7, and then Erdoğan and Putin`s negotiations) on the Syrian topic. As soon as the antiglobalist axis makes progress, the USA and their allies (including Israel) begin to attack and provoke instability.
Erdoğan`s visit to New York
Sunday Turkish leader visited New York for the UN General Assembly. During the visit he marked that Ankara would continue to increase the number of safe zones within Syria to include the east of the Euphrates River. He also adressed to Turkish and Muslim communities in New York.
Later Erdoğan declared that Turkish military cleared a 2,500 square mile (4,000 square kilometer) area from Daesh and YPG-PKK terrorists as part of Euphrates Shield and Olive Branch operations in Syria.
“We will take similar steps east of the Euphrates.”, he added.
Also he criticized the politics of USA and Israel.