(Bloomberg) --
Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan will try to patch up their partnership at their latest Syria summit in Moscow on Thursday after the deadliest fighting yet between Turkey and Russia-backed Syrian forces.
Following a Turkish military blitz in retaliation for the worst losses of its Syrian campaign, Erdogan wants Putin to accept his plan to carve out a new zone of control in Syria's northwestern Idlib province to resettle millions of refugees, according to senior officials familiar with Ankara's policy. That clashes with Putin's insistence that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad must regain control over all of his country's territory.
There's no guarantee of a breakthrough as the two presidents try to reconcile the competing goals that are ratcheting up tensions. At least three Turkish soldiers were killed and 15 wounded in the latest clashes this week with Syrian forces, the Defense Ministry in Ankara said.
Watching nervously on the sidelines are European Union leaders alarmed by Erdogan's threat to allow millions of refugees to cross its border, unleashing a new migrant crisis for the bloc that's already reeling from populist pressures over the issue. So far, the U.S. and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization have been cool to Erdogan's appeal for military support from Turkey's allies.
The Turkish leader is under growing domestic pressure to deliver success in Syria. Putin wants to cement Russia's influence by keeping Assad in power, but may be willing to make some concessions to Ankara's desire for a buffer zone to protect Turkey's border. The two leaders have twice struck deals on Idlib at summit talks in October and in September 2018, only for the agreements to fall apart on the battlefield.
This time, “Putin may have to persuade Assad to make compromises because he can't allow any casualties on our side or the Syrian army to suffer crushing losses,” said Irina Zvyagelskaya, a Middle East expert at the state-funded Institute of World Economy and International Relations in Moscow. “But Erdogan's demands can't be accommodated entirely.”
After the Syrian army recaptured a strategic town linking highways between the capital Damascus and the key cities of Aleppo and Latakia, “Russia does not seem to be willing to make concessions to Turkey,” said Nihat Ali Ozcan, a strategist at the Economic Policy Research Foundation in Ankara. Instead, Moscow wants Turkish troops to retreat toward the border, he said.
What's at Stake in Idlib, Last Battle in Syria's War: QuickTake
Putin rebuffed Erdogan's appeals to meet, first in Istanbul and then with the leaders of France and Germany. The Turkish leader is now coming to Moscow to make his case to Putin alone.
Both Russia and Turkey have been careful to avoid direct conflict even as the violence has spiked in recent days. While Russia formally controls the skies above Syria, Turkey unleashed a barrage from killer drones against Assad's army after an airstrike killed 33 Turkish soldiers in a single day on Feb. 27.
“Moscow has done little to prevent Ankara from inflicting heavy losses on the Syrian army,” said Anthony Skinner, Middle East and North Africa director at risk analyst Verisk Maplecroft. “Both Moscow and Ankara have decided to point the finger of blame at Assad, reflecting how little appetite there is on either side for more direct confrontation.”
Last Stronghold
Idlib is the last stronghold of anti-Assad rebels in Syria once backed by the West and now largely abandoned. In recent weeks, the Syrian military backed by Russian aircraft have stepped up attempts to retake the city and surrounding region, sending a new wave of refugees fleeing toward the Turkish border.
Erdogan supports the rebels, arguing that Idlib's fall would spark another migrant crisis in Turkey, which already hosts the world's largest refugee population of about 5 million in total. Russia says Syria is fighting “terrorists” and accuses Turkey of using its troops to support militants with links to Al-Qaeda.
Erdogan said that Turkey wouldn't stand in the way of migrants seeking to enter the EU. Amid mounting tensions at the border, Greece said it had prevented nearly 28,000 people from entering the country since Saturday.
Turkey said Greek security forces fired on migrants, killing one person and wounding five others at their shared border, the state Anadolu news service reported Wednesday. Greek government spokesman Stelios Petsas said there was “no such incident” and he accused Turkey of spreading “fake news.”
Germany played down expectations of an agreement on policy measures at a meeting of EU interior ministers in Brussels on Wednesday, and distanced itself from reports of possible sanctions against Moscow over the fighting in Syria. “We shouldn't do anything that makes a political solution with Russia in Syria more difficult,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Rainer Breul said.
Offered Ammunition
The U.S. offered to provide ammunition to Turkey Tuesday but hasn't responded to Erdogan's request for air-defense missiles to protect against Russia in Syria.
Russia needs to be careful not to let the conflict with Turkey spin out of control, said Ruslan Pukhov, head of the Center of Analysis of Strategies and Technologies in Moscow. “We have been there for five years. Do we want to stay for another five years?”
Turkey wants a buffer zone that would be off-limits to Assad and “it's not impossible there will be a deal on this,” said Alexei Malashenko, senior analyst at Dialogue of Civilizations, a Berlin-based research organization funded by a longtime Putin ally.
“There will be violations -- the key is how widespread they become,” he said. “With continued tensions inevitable, Russia and Turkey will do everything to avoid a direct armed conflict because that's in neither of their interests.”
--With assistance from Henry Meyer and Firat Kozok.
To contact the reporters on this story: Selcan Hacaoglu in Ankara at shacaoglu@bloomberg.net;Ilya Arkhipov in Moscow at iarkhipov@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Gregory L. White at gwhite64@bloomberg.net, Tony Halpin, Caroline Alexander
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