Turkish and Russian security troops are restarting joint patrols after four years on the M4 highway in northern Syria bordering Türkiye, media reports said Tuesday.
Türkiye and Russia have agreed on reopening the M4 road, which runs from eastern Aleppo to western Latakia through Idlib, as well as two main highways connecting Türkiye’s southeastern city of Gaziantep to Jordan, Turkish newspaper Hürriyet wrote, citing Syria’s Al Vatan newspaper.
The move is planned in parallel to the recent normalization efforts between Ankara and Damascus, according to Al Vatan.
Türkiye and Russia, which back opposition factions in the Syrian civil war, launched joint patrols on the M4 highway on March 15, 2020, days after agreeing to a cease-fire deal in the Idlib region.
The deal included establishing a security strip extending 6 kilometers (3.7 miles) on the northern and southern sides of M4. The goal was to open the strategic key highway to traffic, ensure control, surveil the terrorist groups in the region and survey the situation in civilian settlements.
But attacks from regional radical groups increased on Turkish and Russian military convoys during patrols in July and August, with vehicles taking severe damage. When a Russian soldier was injured during an attack on a joint patrol troop at the end of August, the sides announced patrols were on halt indefinitely.
Before that, in October 2019, Moscow had promised the terrorists from the PKK and its U.S.-backed Syrian offshoot YPG would be removed 30 kilometers from the border on the M4 road and in the area outside the Operation Peace Spring area, which Ankara launched in April 2019, but it failed to keep its promise.
Russian troops were deployed in some PKK/YPG-controlled border areas of northern Syria following a 2019 agreement that sought to avert a previous Turkish operation possibility.
