Russia says it will be a month before 'de-escalation zones' are fully established, as Syrian opposition voices concern.

An agreement to set up "de-escalation zones" in Syria came into effect at midnight on Friday, but it will be at least another month before all the details are worked out and the safe areas are fully established, according to Russian officials.

The plan was agreed by Russia, Turkey, and Iran during Syria talks in Kazakhstan's capital, Astana, on Thursday, but sharply criticised by the Syrian opposition which rejected Iran's role as guarantor in any deal.

It envisions establishing four safe zones that would bring relief for hundreds of thousands of Syrian civilians and encourage refugees to return, Russian military officials said on Friday.

There were limited reports of bombing in northern Homs and Hama, two areas expected to be part of the "de-escalation zones," after midnight. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

Russia, Turkey and Iran are to enforce the zones, but Russian general staff official Sergei Rudskoi said that other countries could participate. He did not elaborate on which those countries might be.

The plan, which has not been published, calls for all aircraft to be banned from flying over the safe zones.

Syrian, Russian, Turkish and US-led coalition aircraft operate in overlapping areas across Syrian airspace.

According to media reports, the plan allows for Russia, Turkey and Iran to continue fighting ISIL, as well as al-Qaeda-affiliated groups inside the safe zones.

Previous ceasefires have collapsed as Russian and Syrian jets continued to hit civilians under the premise of targetting hardline rebels.

Syria's government has said that although it will abide by the agreement, it would continue fighting "terrorism" wherever it exists, parlance for most armed rebel groups fighting government troops.

Reacting to the announcement that the "de-escalation zones" will be closed to military aircraft from the US-led coalition, Pentagon spokesman Jeff Davis said the US military has "not changed or altered our mission in any way".

"These de-escalation zones, as I have seen them on the map, are in western Syria and not in areas where ISIS [Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant] is active," he said. "Our operations are focused on ISIS, which are farther east."

The latest round of Syrian peace talks in Astana was sponsored by opposition supporter Turkey and Syrian government backers Russia and Iran.

Yet, the de-escalation zones agreement was not signed by the Syrian government, nor the opposition.

Representatives of several rebel groups in Astana said they could not accept Iran as a guarantor of the deal.

The High Negotiations Committee (HNC), the main Syrian opposition umbrella group, criticised the plan as vague and illegitimate.

The Riyadh-based HNC, which includes political and armed groups, cautioned against attempts to "partition the country through vague meanings of what has been called ... 'de-escalation' zones," in a statement on Friday.

Mohammed Rasheed, a spokesman for the Jaish al-Nasr rebel group, said Russia was "merely playing political games" and "making declarations".

He said rebels doubted Russian or Syrian government warplanes would stop striking rebel-held areas after the deal takes effect.

"This is not the first time," he added, referring to several mediated ceasefires that have unravelled in Syria's multi-sided conflict.

Chris Doyle, the director of the Council for Arab-British Understanding, said that the agreement is a step forward, "but there are so many spoilers in this".

Doyle said there are huge question marks over the commitment of various actors to reducing violence and over how the plan will be enforced. He said confidence measures and further agreements will be needed to back up the agreement.

"If you are going to make these areas in any way safe on the ground, you're going to need a significant military deployment and you're probably going to need third parties who will have the trust of all sides," said Doyle.

"We're nowhere near that sort of situation at the moment because nobody has been able to demonstrate that the violence is going to be able to recede to the sort of levels that are necessary."

"The United Nations, the United States and Saudi Arabia have welcomed the deal," Russian Deputy Defence Minister Alexander Fomin said in comments carried by state news agency TASS.

The US state department said that it supports "any effort" that can genuinely move towards peace but voiced scepticism about the new agreement's ability to create safe zones.

With the airspace closed over these so-called safe areas, they would become de facto no-fly zones. Calls for such a measure have been made numerous times by opposition members, but it has never been imposed until now.

Previous regions considered for no-fly zones were the border areas with Jordan and Turkey.

Syria's civil war, currently in its seventh year, has killed hundreds of thousands of people and has drawn in world powers on all sides.

The negotiations in Astana are viewed as complementary to broader United Nations-brokered talks in Geneva on a political settlement, but neither have yielded real progress as of yet.</s>The four safe zones to be established in Syria will be closed for flights by US-led coalition warplanes, said the Russian envoy to the Astana peace talks, where the zones were agreed upon.He added that the flight ban was not part of the memorandum establishing the safe zones, but assured the coalition would not fly over them.He added that the US-led coalition would continue airstrikes near Raqqa, the Syrian stronghold of Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL), near some towns near the Euphrates River and close to the city of Deir ez-Zor.On Thursday, a memorandum was signed in Astana establishing four "safe zones" in Syria, where so-called "moderate opposition" fighters are expected to stay safe from airstrikes and keep jihadist groups out. The zones are set in provinces of Idlib, Latakia and Homs, as well as parts of Aleppo.Russia, Iran and Turkey serve as guarantors of the arrangement, which carries hopes of deescalating violence in the war-torn country.The move was cheered by the United Nations and welcomed with reservations by Washington.</s>A deal to set up “de-escalation zones” has taken effect, but the plans for those areas could prove to be difficult to enforce.

The deal took effect at midnight Saturday local time but could take around a month until the safe zones are actually established, Russian officials said. And a new plan will prevent U.S. and coalition forces from flying over them.

The plan seeking to establish four safe zones was agreed upon by Russia, Turkey and Iran in cease-fire talks in Kazakhstan on Thursday. But the U.S. hasn’t agreed to abide by the restriction.

SYRIA CEASE-FIRE TALKS: RUSSIA, IRAN AND TURKEY AGREE ON ‘DE-ESCALATION’ ZONES

Instead, the Pentagon has said that the de-escalation agreement won’t affect the U.S.-led air campaign against Islamic State fighters, The Washington Post reported.

"The coalition will continue to target ISIS wherever they operate to ensure they have no sanctuary," Pentagon spokesman Marine Maj. Adrian J.T. Rankine-Galloway stated.

Russian officials have told reporters that they want to restore a deal with the U.S. to coordinate air operations in Syria in order to cut the risk of accidents. A deal between the two countries was nixed in April following a U.S. missile strike on a Syrian air base. That was in response to a chemical gas attack in the country that was blamed on Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government.

But Russian official Alexander Lavrentyev has said that the former plan may not be renewed.

“The operation of aviation in the de-escalation zones, especially of the forces of the international coalition, is absolutely not envisaged, either with notification or without,” he said. “This question is closed."

Instead, Lavrentyev said, the U.S.-led coalition aircraft would be permitted to target ISIS in specific areas.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.</s>ASTANA Syria's armed opposition on Thursday rejected a Russian plan to create safe zones in Syria, calling it a threat to the country's territorial integrity, and said it would also not recognise Iran as a guarantor of any ceasefire plan.Turkey, which supports Syrian rebels, and Iran, which backs Syrian President Bashar Assad, agreed earlier in the day to Russia's proposal for "de-escalation zones" in Syria, a move welcomed by the United Nations."We want Syria to maintain its integrity," opposition delegate Osama Abu Zaid said after Russia, Turkey and Iran - the sponsors of talks in the Kazakh capital Astana aimed at ending Syria's fighting - signed a memorandum on creating safe zones.

"We are against the division of Syria. As for the agreements, we are not a party to that agreement and of course we will never be in favour (of it) as long as Iran is called a guarantor state," Abu Zaid said.He also cited what he called "a huge gap" between the promises of Russia, which intervened militarily in 2015 on Assad's side and gave him back the upper hand in the conflict.

"We have an agreement already (in) our hands, why isn’t it implemented? There is an agreement...signed five months ago, why hasn't it been implemented?" he said, referring to a truce deal announced by Russia in December that was largely ignored on the ground. "Why are we jumping now to safe zones?" "Russia was not able to or does not want to implement the pledges it makes, and this is a fundamental problem."

Several opposition delegates walked out in protest, briefly interrupting the signing of the safe zones memorandum.Russia, Turkey and Iran did not immediately publish the memorandum, leaving its details unclear. But the safe zones appear intended to be conflict-free in order to help widen a ceasefire, and would potentially be policed by foreign troops.Senior Russian negotiator Alexander Lavrentyev told reporters on Thursday that under the plan Russia could send observers to safe zones. Third-party monitors could also be invited provided Iran and Turkey agreed, he said. (Reporting by Olzhas Auyezov and Raushan Nurshayeva; writing by Dmitry Solovyov; editing by Vladimir Soldatkin and Mark Heinrich)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.</s>BEIRUT (Reuters) - The Syrian Kurdish PYD party rejects a Russian proposal to create de-escalation zones in Syria and views it as “sectarian partition” of the country, a spokesman said on Friday.

Iran and Turkey agreed on Thursday to the Russian plan, but the memorandum was not immediately published, leaving its details unclear.

The zones appear intended to halt conflict in specific areas between Syrian government forces and rebels, and would potentially be policed by foreign troops.

The plan amounts to “dividing Syria up on a sectarian basis,” said Ibrahim Ibrahim, a PYD spokesman, who described it as a “crime”.

The Syrian government, with the help of Russia and Iran, has gained the military upper hand against rebel groups, including some supported by Turkey, the U.S. and Gulf monarchies.

The Syrian government supported the de-escalation plan, but said it would continue to fight what it termed terrorist groups. Rebels rejected the deal and said they would not recognize Iran as a guarantor of any ceasefire plan.

Ibrahim said the Russian proposal could also threaten autonomous regions in the Kurdish-dominated north that emerged with the onset of the multi-sided conflict in 2011.

The PYD is the political affiliate of the YPG militia, which effectively serves as the military of the Kurdish-led enclaves and has appeared to be a key partner for the United States in fighting Islamic State in Syria.

The dominant Syrian Kurdish groups and their allies aim to deepen their autonomy through establishing a new system of federal government in the north. They say the regional federal model should be the solution to the entire Syrian war.

The countries involved in the de-escalation deal could thwart these plans and encroach on the autonomous regions, Ibrahim said.</s>The Saudi backed High Negotiations Committee of Syrian rebels today angrily condemned the agreement to establish safe zones for civilians in Syria, insisting that the plan was “illegitimate” and meant to “partition the country” with the establishm4ent of demilitarized areas.

This opposition echoes complaints from other rebel factions yesterday when the plan was initially announced. The US nominally supports the safe zones, though they have insisted they will not respect them if they decide they want to carry out attacks in those areas.

Fight around the safe zones has mostly been reduced since they went into effect overnight, though there was some report of fighting near a safe zone in Hama Province, with rebels and the Syrian military contesting a village. The rebels insisted the Syrian military was to blame for the fighting.

Russia, Iran, and Turkey are all serving as guarantors of the safe zones, which puts substantial pressure on the Syrian government to respect them, as well as on the Turkish-backed subset of rebels. The Saudi-backed rebels, however, are expected to ignore it outright.
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• Syrian regime allies Russia and Iran, and rebel supporter Turkey, yesterday signed a memorandum on a Moscow-backed plan to create safe zones in Syria to bolster a fragile truce.

However, a member of the rebel delegation left the room where the peace talks were being held in the Kazakh capital Astana, shouting against Iran.

The Syrian government and rebel delegations are not signatories.

The Kremlin has been touting a plan to create safe zones in Syria that are aimed at "further pacification and cessation of hostilities".

"Over the past two days, the participants in the Astana talks reviewed the implementation of the ceasefire agreement and the cessation of hostilities," Kazakh Foreign Minister Kairat Abdrakhmanov said of a frail truce brokered by Moscow and Ankara in December.

Over the past two days, the participants in the Astana talks reviewed the implementation of the ceasefire agreement and the cessation of hostilities. As a result, the guarantor countries agreed to sign a memorandum on the creation of de-escalation zones in Syria. KAZAKH FOREIGN MINISTER KAIRAT ABDRAKHMANOV, on a frail truce brokered by Moscow and Ankara in December.

"As a result, the guarantor countries agreed to sign a memorandum on the creation of de-escalation zones in Syria."

Turkey's Foreign Ministry said the agreement to create safe zones will cover all of Idlib province, as well as parts of Aleppo, Latakia and Homs. It said the deal would ban all use of weapons in those areas.

The aim is to "put an immediate end to the violence" and "provide the conditions for the safe, voluntary return of refugees", as well as the immediate delivery of relief supplies and medical aid, said a copy of the draft document that was seen by Agence France-Presse.

But issues, including which countries could police any safe zones, remain unclear.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that ways to monitor the zones would be an issue for separate talks.

Syrian rebels said earlier yesterday that they had resumed participation in the talks after having suspended their involvement a day earlier over air strikes against civilians.

After talks with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday, Mr Putin said the safe zones were meant to lead to "further pacification and cessation of hostilities". He also said the proposed zones would be no-fly areas if fighting on the ground there stopped entirely.

The Kremlin's plan echoes calls by United States President Donald Trump to establish safe zones in Syria.

Mr Putin said on Wednesday that "as far as I could tell", the US leader broadly supported the idea in a phone call they held on Tuesday.

Mr Erdogan said in comments published yesterday that Moscow's plan to set up these zones in Syria would "50 per cent" solve the six-year conflict.

More than 320,000 people have been killed in Syria since the country's war began with anti-government protests in March 2011.

Mr Abdrakhmanov said the next Syria peace talks would be held in Astana in mid-July.</s>ASTANA (Reuters) - Syria’s armed opposition on Thursday rejected a Russian plan to create safe zones in Syria, calling it a threat to the country’s territorial integrity, and said it would also not recognize Iran as a guarantor of any ceasefire plan.

U.N. Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura speaks to the media during the fourth round of Syria peace talks in Astana, Kazakhstan, May 4, 2017. REUTERS/Mukhtar Kholdorbekov

Turkey, which supports Syrian rebels, and Iran, which backs Syrian President Bashar Assad, agreed earlier in the day to Russia’s proposal for “de-escalation zones” in Syria, a move welcomed by the United Nations but met with scepticism from the United States.

“We want Syria to maintain its integrity,” opposition delegate Osama Abu Zaid said after Russia, Turkey and Iran signed a memorandum on creating safe zones. The three countries are sponsoring talks in the Kazakh capital Astana aimed at ending Syria’s fighting.

“We are against the division of Syria. As for the agreements, we are not a party to that agreement and of course we will never be in favor (of it) as long as Iran is called a guarantor state,” Abu Zaid said.

He also cited what he called “a huge gap” between the promises of Russia, which intervened militarily in 2015 on Assad’s side and gave him back the upper hand in the conflict.

“We have an agreement already (in) our hands, why isn’t it implemented?” he said, referring to a truce deal announced by Russia in December that was largely ignored on the ground. “Why are we jumping now to safe zones?”

“Russia was not able to or does not want to implement the pledges it makes, and this is a fundamental problem.”

Russia, Turkey and Iran did not immediately publish the memorandum, leaving its details unclear. But the safe zones appear intended to be conflict-free to help widen a ceasefire, and would potentially be policed by foreign troops.

The U.S. State Department said in a statement that it was skeptical of Iran’s involvement as a guarantor of the accord and Damascus’ track record on previous agreements.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a statement that he was encouraged by the proposal but cautioned it must “actually improve the lives of Syrians.”

Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister, Adel al-Jubeir, said while on a visit to Washington, D.C., that the kingdom supported creation of safe zones but he wanted to see more details.

Russian negotiator Alexander Lavrentyev said that under the plan Russia could send observers to safe zones. He said third-party monitors could be invited provided Iran and Turkey agreed.</s>Senior US and Russian military commanders have discussed the situation in Syria, where a Russian-proposed plan to establish four safe zones to promote a cessation of hostilities came into force hours ago.General Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, called General Valery Gerasimov, the chairman of the Russian General Staff, to discuss the latest developments in Syria by phone, the Russian Defense Ministry reported.Russia suspended the memorandum after the US launched Tomahawk missiles at a Syrian airbase last month. Moscow considers the attack to have been an act of international aggression. The document is meant to prevent possible adverse encounters between American and Russian warplanes over Syria.The ministry said the officials had also discussed "additional measures to prevent conflict situations during joint operations against ISIL and Jabhat Al-Nusra," the two groups designated by the UN as terrorists operating in Syria.Russia, Turkey, and Iran agreed upon the plan to establish four safe zones in Syria during peace talks in Astana, Kazakhstan. It is meant to provide a degree of safety to armed opposition groups that pledge to end their violent revolt and seek a political transition in Syria. Under the plan, Damascus and these groups have agreed not to engage in hostilities with each other in those safe zones.The safe zones have been established in Syria's Idlib Governorate and parts of neighboring Latakia, Aleppo and Hama provinces, the northern part of Homs province, Damascus' Eastern Ghouta neighborhood, and parts of southern Deraa and Quneitra provinces that border on Jordan. The exact borders of the zones have yet to be demarked and agreed upon by the three guarantors of the plan.Observation posts and checkpoints manned by the guarantors are to be established along the lines to monitor how well the deal is observed. The first hours after the agreement came into force were marked by a reduced level of violence, but some violations have been reported.The Russian Center for Syrian reconciliation said on Saturday that it had received reports that some jihadist groups were planning to "attempt to derail the memorandum," but added that the Russian military is prepared to "eliminate any possible provocations by the terrorists."The deal offers no protection to terrorist groups such as Islamic State (formerly ISIS/ISIL), which remain legitimate targets in Syria. The armed opposition is expected to keep the jihadists from using the zones as safe havens. The memorandum also states that the three guarantors will "take all necessary measures to continue the fight" against the terrorists.The plan has been hailed by UN and received reserved approval from Washington. Russia said it expects the US-led coalition to refrain from flying over the safe zones, but the Pentagon has yet to publicly make such a commitment.</s>Alwaght- Following the end of Astana peace talks on Syria that came out with a deal to set up “de-escalation zones” in Syria, the Russian officials put a ban on military aircraft operations over the four designated safe zones.

“Aviation operations, especially by the international coalition forces, are absolutely not envisioned," said the Russian presidential envoy to Syria Alexander Lavrentiev, adding that the accord is now a done deal.

The remarks by the envoy of the Russian President Vladimir Putin have come shortly after the three countries of Russia, Turkey, and Iran, as the three main sides pushing ahead the Astana peace process, have reached an agreement to establish safe zones​ in some parts of Syria to put an end to the devastating conflict now in its sixth years.

The accord will see setting up four safe zones in Idlib, northern Homs, Ghouta, and south of the country. The plan went into effect on Saturday.

The plan to prohibit military flights to create no-fly zones over parts of Syria was originally an American idea. The Syrian opposition and their Western patrons tried to materialize the plan for the past six years in a bid to bar the Syrian government’s warplanes from striking the militant positions. But now the Russians have taken a preemptive step and implemented the idea in the crisis-hit country to curb the US-led coalition’s military activities and make the Americans play in accordance with the Russian rules.

The agreement saw no direct citation of the US name, but the Russian officials' interpretation that the deal bans the American fighter jets' operations over the four zones has provoked many American reactions. The Americans sent out conflicting messages about the Russian plan. After announcement of the initiative, the US Department of State released a statement saying that it welcomes the deal. Then a Department of State official said that the US did not sign the Syrian deal, adding that the Astana agreement cannot exclude any side from chasing the terrorists across Syria and that the Russians' interpretation of the accord was baseless.

The Pentagon has declined to comment on the new Russian stances, according to the American media.

Some analysts have argued that the mixed and conflicting messages coming out of the White House and the State Department indicates that Washington has yet to make up its mind about the de-conflicting agreement for Syria. Professor Max Abrahams of Northwestern University suggested that there is a real confusion inside the top government circles about adoption of an essential approach on Syria.

Taking into consideration the past Syria-related deals as well as the US failure to observe the terms of the international and bilateral agreements, the analysts cast doubt on success of the Astana truce accord. However, it seems that the Russians are seeking specific goals behind brokering the safe zones plan.

The experts note that safe zones will put the anti-Damascus armed groups in a tight corner. During the past years of the conflict, they supported the idea of establishing safe zones in a bid to paint themselves as protectors of people and President Assad as enemy of his people. But now everything has been turned on its head. Syrian government has backed the plan while militants have come strongly against it, something that will help unmask their real face.

Many voices are now rising against the so-called rebels, saying that anti-Assad groups' insistence on establishing the safe zones in the past was not meant to protect the Syrian people but only to contribute to the foreign efforts to topple the Syrian government.

Setting up the secure zones in the four parts of the country will allow the government to raise bigger numbers of troops to dispatch to other areas of conflict, not to mention that the army now has more time to focus on battlefields not covered by the ceasefire deal. This comes while the armed opposition, whose militants are now forced to hold their fire, cannot send fighters to other front lines.

On the other side, the word has started spreading that the Syrian army and its allies are bracing for launching new massive operation against ISIS terrorist group in central regions of the country. Meanwhile, yesterday a Russian official said that the de-escalation plan in Syria will improve the Syrian government’s battleground position and make it have the upper hand against ISIS in Palmyra and Deir ez-Zor, where the terrorist group still holds ground.

The new operation is meant to get the government forces, backed by an array of allied forces, closer to Deir ez-Zor in center which is now encircled by the terrorist militants. However, the operation is fully feasible, the military experts maintain, only when the government makes sure that no dangers are posed from Damascus outskirts, Homs, and Daraa.

In general, it appears that Russians want to send a signal to the Americans, telling them that Moscow is now in control of the Syrian airspace and will counter any measure aimed at grounding the Syrian air force' fighter jets.
The United Nations welcomed the long discussed safe zones, although they have been rejected by Syrian rebels and the Kurdish PYD.