The six-hour talks between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on the Syrian settlement that took place in Sochi yesterday were radical in nature in comparison with other international meetings on this topic, deputy head of the Council of the Russian Diplomats Association Andrei Baklanov said, speaking with the correspondent of Vestnik Kavkaza.
"The radical difference is that these talks are aimed at solving specific, urgent issues - and at the same time, despite all the difficulties, we managed to come to encouraging moments. Most importantly, the movement towards restoring Syria's full sovereignty over all its territories was confirmed. So far it has not been achieved, but the movement has already begun in this regard. Erdogan emphasized that he takes a firm hold on this line, while his concerns as President of Turkey will be taken into account," he noted in the first place.
"Also, specific ideas were outlined about which military units should not be in the temporary security zone. An agreement was reached that these forces will be withdrawn outside the zone. In general, the parties agreed on a whole range of transitional measures," the deputy head of the Council of the Russian Diplomats Association pointed out.
"Most of all I am impressed by the provision on mechanisms for verifying the implementation of agreements, it may have far-reaching consequences both for the region and for the entire system of international relations as a whole. A special mechanism will be created to verify the implementation of agreed measures. More broadly, it will work as a starting monitoring system to obtain more reliable facts about the situation in Syria. And this is a genuine revolution for the Middle East. We need to make sure that the verification system is successfully implemented," Andrei Baklanov called on.
"In general, I rank the results of the negotiations very high. Of course, much remains unresolved, and although these agreements are very important, they are intermediate in nature," the diplomat concluded.
