Who will have to carry out cleansing in Idlib?

Every day the details of the visit of President Erdogan to Moscow (January 23) are becoming clearer. From the words of Mr. Erdogan, it became clear that as a basis for resolving the Syrian problem, President Putin pointed to the Adan Agreement, signed between Ankara and Damascus in October 1998.

It can be seen that the Turkey"s president himself is inclined to this, and Mr. Erdogan personally announced about the meetings between officials of the two countries below the rank. Last Saturday, the Speaker of the Parliament, Binali Yıldırım, and the Chairman of the Vatan Partisi, Doğu Perinçek, who has close relations with Russia, exchanged the views.

After the designation of the Adan Agreement as the "basis of regulation", Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu stated, "Russia wants to conduct an operation together with Turkey to solve the Idlib problem". This statement was subsequently confirmed by various sources. That is, everything again came down to the reanimation of the "Idlib problem", which was temporarily frozen by the requests and commitments of Turkey taking place on September 17, 2018 at the meeting between Putin and Erdogan in Sochi.

Russia is aggressively seeking to cleanse Idlib of terrorist groups, and this time, instead of listening to Turkey"s request, Moscow openly demanded that she do so. We have previously written that more than half of the 60,000 terrorists in Idlib are of Chechen origin, and the continuation of their stay in this city would mean the futility of 3.5 years of Russian activity in Syria.

For the Kremlin, the rejection of the complete liberation of Idlib from the militants is equivalent to his showing loyalty to the Chechen terrorists, most of whom are citizens of the Russian Federation. In addition, the territorial integrity of Syria cannot be guaranteed without such a cleansing of Idlib.

On the other hand, these terrorist groups are concentrated not too far from the two Russian naval bases in Syria and control several main highways of the latter. Therefore, the operation in Idlib is inevitable, and the fact that it will not be postponed, it became clear after the one-day visit to Moscow of President Erdogan.

Does Russia want to carry out a military action in Idlib with Turkey? Alternatively, Moscow, reminding Ankara that the term given to it to fulfill its obligation to clean Idlib, expired four months ago, requires Turkey to release it independently. Both of these options can take place.

Regardless of which of these options is beneficial to Moscow and Ankara, the current situation for Turkey is very painful. For, objectively asserting that the military operation will cause a new flow of refugees towards the Turkish border, Ankara on September 17, before this, in Tehran, and even earlier, in Astana, thanks to this very argument, it was able to extend this period.

In addition, at the present stage, we are talking about a joint military campaign by Turkey and Russia in Idlib. Does not a new wave of refugees (and this is almost 500 thousand people) rush to the Turkish border in this case?

What preventive measures should Turkey take to prevent the flow of refugees in case it alone or with Russia conducts a military operation in Idlib? Will Turkey be able to build the first barriers in the Afrin region under its control with the aim of averting a wave of refugees in case if Russia decides to carry out this operation itself?

In the past 50 days, the center for the implementation of plans changes from west to east, in the opposite direction. Which of these plans can Ankara successfully implement, and where?