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...Ankara turned against Assad over his brutal response to the 2011 uprising, which sparked the refugee exodus....
...The crossing, which is a vital lifeline to 4mn people in Syria’s Idlib province, one of the last remaining enclaves for the opposition that fought Bashar al-Assad’s regime during a 12-year civil war, had...
...Syrian state TV showed footage of rescue teams searching for survivors in areas under the control of the Assad regime, with health officials asking the public to help rescue neighbours and take them to hospitals...
...But Erdoğan was unable to secure a green light for another ground offensive from Russia and Iran, which support Assad, in recent months....
...president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan repeatedly pledged this year that his army would invade again, but analysts said that a failure to secure approval from Russia and Iran, who back Syrian president Bashar al-Assad...
...It is one of the last backers of opposition fighters who have sought to topple President Bashar al-Assad, who is supported by Russia and Iran, since the country’s civil war began in 2011....
...at their second meeting in less than a month, as Ankara seeks to retain Moscow’s support for a landmark deal it helped broker to allow Ukrainian grain exports to reach international markets, writes Ayla Jean...
...The campaign secured her the respect of Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s radical supporters....
...In the Middle East, views towards Russia are sharply polarised because of its military support for Syrian president Bashar al-Assad....
...Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad, who is backed by Russia, wants to reclaim “every inch” of his nation, including Idlib....
...In Syria, it was the necessity to prop up Bashar al-Assad to keep Russian presence on the Mediterranean and to keep Syria as a pro-Russian client-state....
...Berri, an ally of the Iran-backed Hizbollah paramilitary movement that ultimately holds the whip hand in this sinking Lebanon, was merely echoing remarks by French foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian in...
...Nothing substantial for France and Europe, argues Tatiana Kastoueva-Jean, a researcher at the Ifri think-tank....
...Erdogan had a choice put in front of him — the PKK or Assad — and he chose Assad,” said Aaron Stein, director of the Middle East Program at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia....
...Russia’s foreign ministry said in a statement on Saturday that a Russian delegation had met Mr Assad and discussed the situation in the north-east....
...These decisions triggered a rare bipartisan outcry from both Republicans and Democrats who accused Mr Trump of abandoning a US ally, the Kurds, while emboldening the Assad regime and its foreign backers,...
...For Russia, which intervened militarily in Syria in 2015 on the side of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, the deal with Turkey helps Moscow portray itself as a peace broker as it eyes a post-conflict political...
...The Russian president backs Bashar al-Assad, Syrian president, in the civil war that has dragged on for eight years....
...Turkey supports armed groups that oppose Mr Assad’s regime, which is in turn backed by Russia and Iran....
...Faisal Maqdad, foreign minister, said Bashar al-Assad’s government “won’t accept any dialogue or talk with those who had become hostages to foreign forces”, referring to the SDF’s alliance with the US and...
...Analysts say the main beneficiaries of the US withdrawal are Syrian president Bashar al-Assad and Russia, which intervened in Syria and shifted the balance of the country’s eight-year civil war in Damascus...
...“Our priority, more than ever before, should be de-escalation,” said Jean-Yves Le Drian, the French foreign minister. “The cycle of violence must stop.”...
...Moscow and Tehran back the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, while Ankara supports anti-Assad rebels....
...(FT) Inside Syria’s final battle There are some 3m civilians trapped in north-west Syria near the Turkish border, facing an intense bombing campaign by forces loyal to Bashar al-Assad....
...Reporting by Mehul Srivastava in Tel Aviv, Henry Foy in Moscow, Asser Khattab in Beirut and Ayla Jean Yackley in Istanbul...
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