MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Turkish and Russian servicemen began on Friday patrolling the Idlib de-escalation zone in northwest Syria, Turkish Defence Minister Hulusi Akar said.
Akar said any Turkish contacts with the Syrian government were "out of the question." He added Ankara, which supports Syrian opposition, had been in talks with Russia and occasionally Iran on the matter of the Syrian peace.
Last September, Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, agreed to set up a demilitarized zone in Idlib along the contact line between armed opposition groups and Syrian government forces, while the Russian and Turkish defence ministers signed a memorandum on stabilising the situation in the Idlib de-escalation zone.