CORRECTS - Turkey, Russia should protect their alliance: expert

In a Feb. 6 story on a panel discussion in the Turkish capital Ankara on Turkey-Russia relations, Anadolu Agency mistakenly took out of context some remarks by Talat Cetin, a representative of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA). A corrected copy of the story is as follows:

By Gozde Bayar

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey and Russia should protect their alliance, said an expert on international relations.

"Ruining the Turkish-Russian alliance would benefit the West. We should patiently protect the alliance," Talat Cetin, a representative of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), said at a panel discussion on Turkish-Russian relations in the capital Ankara.

The panel discussion was organized by Ankara-based Institute of Strategic Thinking (SDE) in the aftermath of a Syrian regime shelling in Idlib de-escalation zone on Monday that killed eight Turkish nationals, including seven troops.

Cetin said the Syrian attack on Turkish forces in Idlib was an attempt to harm the Turkish-Russian relations.

He also said Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin are "the honor and protectors of the East".

He said Russia did not gain any benefit from the incident.

"We need to determine who won from the attack," he added.

"First, Putin lost reputation in Turkey, something which he wouldn't want at all in a country such as Turkey. [...] Secondly, the incident caused an image like [Syria's Bashar] al-Assad does not listen to Putin and Putin is not that powerful," Cetin said.

"Turks should take care of Erdogan and Russians should take of Putin."

- Risk of refugee flow

"[Regime’s] operations in Aleppo and Eastern Ghouta deteriorated the situation in Idlib. Civilians flocked to Idlib rather than moving to the south," said Mithat Isik, defense and security expert at the SDE.

Stressing that the population in Idlib climbed to four million, he said the refugee problem would be a "matter of survival" for Turkey.

Located in northwestern Syria next to Turkey’s borderline, Idlib has been a fortress for opposition forces and anti-regime armed groups since the eruption of the bloody civil war in 2011.

More than 1.5 million Syrians have moved near the Turkish border due to intense attacks by the regime forces and its allies in Idlib over the past year.

Since the eruption of the bloody civil war in Syria in 2011, Turkey has taken in some 3.7 million Syrians who fled their country, making it the world’s top refugee-hosting country.

- 'Trust issue'

Ihsan Basbozkurt, a retired Turkish military officer, highlighted the "issue of trust" between Russia and Turkey.

"We do not have a common understanding with Russia. We achieved the common understanding on the table but not on the field," he stressed.

Regarding the Astana and Sochi agreements for Syrian peace, he said the agreements became "null" and a de-escalation zone is a "dream".

Turkey, Russia and Iran held meetings in Astana, Kazakhstan in 2017 and announced that Idlib and neighboring cities, Eastern Ghouta region of capital Damascus and southern regions, namely Daraa and Quneitra cities, would be de-escalation zones.

But the Assad regime and Iranian-backed terror groups launched attacks in violation of the agreements, and, thanks to Russian air support, gained control of all these territories with the exception of Idlib city.

The aggression continued after Sept. 17, 2018, when Turkey and Russia held Sochi meetings in a bid to halt attacks.