Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said yesterday that attempts to include the PKK and its Syrian offshoot Democratic Union Party (PYD) in any international meeting on Syria's peace process is unacceptable and Ankara informed Russia and Iran, other guarantor states of the cease-fire in Syria, over the issue. Turkish, Iranian and Russian foreign ministers came together in Antalya in a preliminary meeting to the upcoming summit for Syria, set to be held on Nov. 22. Çavuşoğlu said after the meeting that they made preparations for the upcoming summit and shared their opinions over possible subjects that will be handled during the summit.
He also said the three countries discussed the ongoing deployment process in İdlib as a part of de-confliction agreement.
In the meantime, the Turkish military continues to dispatch troops to Syria's Idlib province to establish observation posts to monitor the cease-fire as part of the Astana Peace process.
According to local sources, a Turkish military convoy of 50 vehicles and 90 Turkish soldiers headed to the northern Syrian village of Sheikh Aqil in the countryside of Aleppo on late Friday.
During the recent peace talks in the Kazakh capital Astana, the three guarantor countries, Turkey, Iran and Russia, agreed to establish de-escalation zones in Idlib and in parts of the Aleppo, Latakia and Hama provinces.
The convoy was deployed to an observation point after it proceeded along the Idlib-Afrin zone.
The Turkish Armed Force elements are also being deployed in Afrin, an Aleppo district near Turkey-Syria border, which is under siege by the PYD terrorist organization, which is the Syrian wing of the PKK.
On Oct. 12, the Turkish military started to cross into the region to establish observation points to monitor the cease-fire regime in the Idlib de-escalation zone.
Idlib, which is located in northwestern Syria on the Turkish border, faced intense attacks by the Syrian regime after a vicious civil war broke out in 2011.
Since, March 2015, Idlib was no longer under the control of the Syrian regime and was dominated by military opposition groups and anti-regime armed organizations.