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Erdogan, Putin to Seek to Avoid Clash Over Syria's Idlib

Charles Maynes

   MOSCOW - Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan heads to Moscow on
   Thursday for a high-stakes meeting with Russian President Vladimir
   Putin aimed at de-escalating tensions betweenthearmies of Turkey, a
   NATO member, and Russia, a nuclear superpower, in Syria's war-torn
   Idlib province.

   While nominally partners in a fight against terrorism in the region,
   Moscow and Ankara have been cast on a seemingly unavoidable collision
   course in Idlib -- the territory in northwest Syria where Russia is
   helping its ally, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, wipe out one of the
   last bastions of opposition to his rule.

   Turkey, along withWestern governments, accuses the Syrian government of
   carrying out a bombing campaign with Russian support that has provoked
   a humanitarian crisis, with nearly a million civilians fleeing the
   fighting for the Syria-Turkey border.

   The siege has also met with forceful pushback from Ankara because it
   opposes Assad's rule.In response, Turkey has launched a military
   campaign intended to protect what it says are largely anti-Assad
   rebels, not terrorists, in the Idlib stronghold.

   During his briefing with reporters Wednesday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry
   Peskov said Russia hoped for a compromise with Erdogan, despite those
   differences.

   "We expect to reach a common understanding on the crisis, the cause of
   the crisis, the harmful effects of the crisis,and arrive at a set of
   necessary joint measures," Peskov said.

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