Syrian rebels to remove heavy weapons from buffer zone
Turkish-backed rebels said Sunday they expected to finish withdrawing heavy weapons from a planned buffer zone in northwestern Syria within days under a deal to stave off a regime attack.
Regime ally Russia and rebel backer Turkey reached the agreement on September 17 for the northwestern region of Idlib on the Turkish border to avert what many warned would be one of the worst humanitarian disasters of Syria's seven-year conflict.
But Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said on Sunday the deal for the country's last major opposition bastion was just a "temporary measure" before the government retook the region.
"The agreement is a temporary measure through which the state has realized many achievements on the ground starting with stemming the bloodshed," state news agency SANA reported Assad as saying.
Idlib "and other Syrian territory still under terrorist control will return to the Syrian state," he reportedly said at a meeting of the central committee of his Baath party, employing the regime's usual term for both rebels and jihadists. Last month's agreement is to create a 15 to 20-kilometre (9-12 mile) demilitarized area ringing the Idlib region.
