Battle for Syria's last major rebel bastion on hold as Putin and Erdogan meet to discuss next moves

Gathering is second in 10 days for the Turkish and Russian leaders

The leaders of Turkey and Russia are meeting in Sochi on Monday for hastily arranged talks over the fate of Syria’s last major rebel stronghold.

For now the impending offensive on Idlib province, touted for weeks by Damascus and its Russian and Iranian backers, appears to be on hold as a result of Turkish diplomatic agitation and military manoeuvres.

Turkey is struggling to prevent an onslaught by pro-Damascus forces on the rebel-held Idlib province, but its moves may have also escalated the potential dangers of the conflict.

“We will continue our efforts with Iran and with Russia,” Turkey’s foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said at a press conference in Islamabad late last week. “We will continue our efforts on international platforms as well.”

In recent days, Turkey has begun fortifying positions in Idlib ahead of the Russian-backed Syrian government offensive. Turkey has amassed armoured vehicles, artillery guns, and tanks along the border with Syria, with some equipment moving across the frontier, according to Turkish news outlets and video footage posted to the internet.

It has transferred arms and ammunition to its Free Syria Army (FSA) rebel allies, pro-Ankara newspapers reported, though some experts say the distribution of weapons won’t affect the outcome of any conflict.

A Syrian rebel fighter takes part in combat training in the northern countryside of the Idlib province on 11 September in anticipation for an upcoming government forces offensive (Getty)

Turkey has also begun to bolster a dozen outposts it operates in and around Idlib with additional troops and military vehicles. The military positions were set up in cooperation with Russia and Iran as mechanisms worked out during a series of talks that began in the Kazakh capital of Astana to monitor local truce deals.

“These 12 observation points were equipped with limited military equipment and their main role was to monitor the agreement done in Astana,” said Nawar Oliver, a Syria specialist at the Omran Institute for Strategic Studies, a think tank in Istanbul. “At the moment when the regime started to mobilise its forces around Idlib, Turkey started to send reinforcements to some of these points.”

Syrian forces aided by Russian air power could easily overrun the outposts. But Turkey’s moves have upped the geopolitical cost of any attempt to take Idlib by the pro-Assad camp that includes Russia, Iran, and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, as well as Iraqi Shia militias backed by Tehran.

Around three million Syrians live in Idlib province, a hilly agricultural region by the Turkish border. Many of the displaced have resettled in the province from other parts of the country or were forcibly relocated there from opposition enclaves recaptured by Damascus.

Turkey, the primary patron of the Syrian opposition and the host to 3.5 million displaced Syrians, has vehemently opposed the regime offensive to retake Idlib. The US and Europe have urged a political solution over Idlib and warned against the military campaign. US envoy to the UN Nikki Haley repeated warnings that any use of chemical weapons by the regime would trigger a response by Washington.

The UK on Saturday warned of an impending humanitarian crisis amid reports of attacks on hospitals and clinics in rebel-held territory. “The UK has been clear that a man-made catastrophe in Idlib is entirely avoidable,” Alistair Burt, Middle East minister, said in a a press release. “We support the urgent diplomatic efforts being made by Turkey and the UN.”

Ankara worries in part that another bloody confrontation in Syria could flood Turkey and Europe with hundreds of thousands of fresh refugees.

Already, thousands of displaced Syrians have relocated from the southern edges of Idlib and northern Hama province to the Turkish-controlled Afrin district adjacent to the border, said a source in Afrin. On Friday, Turkey hosted a meeting of French, German and Russian officials ahead of a possible meeting of those countries’ leaders over Idlib.

In addition to a possible confrontation between pro-Assad forces and Turkey, Idlib could be the flashpoint for a conflict with jihadi forces that dominate parts of the province. In recent days, al-Qaeda’s international supporters on social media have also blasted fellow jihadis in Idlib for allowing Turkey to dispatch armoured vehicles and trucks carrying tanks into Syria, as depicted in videos posted on social media.

A 13 September statement signed by 15 prominent al-Qaeda supporters questioned Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the jihadi group that is a dominant player in Idlib, for granting Turkey access to the province.

Mr Oliver suggested Turkey could be bolstering the observation points for fear of attacks by jihadis as well as to stymie Damascus’s offensive. “The internal problems for Idlib are huge,” he said. “We are talking about an area that has FSA factions, HTS, you have Isis cells, you have other small entities.”

For now Turkey’s moves have complicated plans to retake Idlib. Syrian civilians have begun to mass around the bolstered observation points in hopes that they won’t be struck by government and Russian warplanes. "Thousands of Syrians who have fled the attacks of the regime and Russia are settling in the areas where the Turkish army's military posts are, because they think it is safe," the pro-government Vatan newspaper reported, publishing photos showing people purported to be sheltering near the outposts.

On Friday, for the second week in a row, thousands of Syrians in the province took to the streets in peaceful, colourful demonstrations that recalled the first months of the 2011 uprising against the Assad family’s decades-long dictatorship. “For the time being, everything is postponed,” Mr Oliver said. “There is no final agreement and no final disagreement.”