In a clandestine mission, Turkey deploys 80 military vehicles near its Syrian border

Ankara, September 18: Protecting the border like if its armor, Turkey shares the dangerous borders with Syria which is the abode of ISIS terrorists. On Saturday, a local Turkish newspaper reported that the country has sent 80 military vehicles including tanks to its southern border with Syria. The deployment was part of reinforcements for troops stationed along the border. The vehicles were sent to the southeastern province of Hatay.

 

A third convoy of armoured vehicles was heading to Hatay's Reyhanli district, where Turkey's Cilvegozu border gate with Syria is located. Eyewitnesses confirmed the arrival of the vehicles, including armoured personnel carriers, at the Rihaniyah area on the Turkish-Syrian border.

Syrian opposition officials and activists said they expected the troops would continue towards Syria as per the terms reached in the Astana agreement. The treaty requires the entry of Turkish forces in areas controlled by the Syrian opposition in the province of Idlib.

Russia, Turkey, and Iran agreed to set up de-escalation zones in Syria for six months during the sixth round of talks in the Kazakh capital, Astana, last week. The plan calls for the cessation of hostilities between anti-government groups and forces fighting on behalf of Bashar al-Assad in four so-called de-escalation zones in mainly opposition-held areas of the country, with Russia, Turkey and Iran to act as guarantors.

According to Turkish pro-government newspaper, the three countries planned to divide the Idlib region in three, with Turkish forces and opposition fighters in the northwest region bordering Turkey. It said Iranian and Syrian army forces would be deployed to the southeast, with Russian forces in between those two zones.

The Syrian civil war has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives since it began in March 2011, with millions of Syrians fleeing the country, leading to the worst refugee crisis since World War II.