ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Russia’s deputy foreign minister on Monday called the situation in areas of Syria outside regime control “explosive and complex”, amid continuing clashes in the strategic town of Ain Issa between Kurdish-led and pro-Turkey forces.
“The situation on the ground in Syria has stabilized, but remains explosive and complex. Tensions persist in the territories not controlled by Damascus,” Sergey Vershinin told the Russian state-owned RIA Novosti news agency on Monday.
Among the volatile areas Vershinin named are the East of Euphrates, where clashes are taking place between the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and Turkey-backed militants in the town of Ain Issa and Idlib, where fighting continues between Syrian regime and rebel forces.
Russia is a main backer of President Bashar al-Assad and has pressed the SDF to hand over the strategic town of Ain Issa to the regime – to the SDF’s refusal.
Ain Issa, located at a junction that connects many cities in northeast Syria, has been a focal point of recent clashes.
The SDF have been resisting attacks by Turkey-backed militants in the town since early December. The militants have yet to make any advances.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) and the SDF-affiliated Hawar News Agency (ANHA) reported renewed clashes between both forces in the area on Monday.
ANHA said on Monday that fighting in the village of Maalaq was continuing into the night. The UK-based SOHR said no casualties have been reported in the clash in the village.
Turkey and its proxies control stretches of northern Syria, including parts of the provinces of Aleppo and Idlib, as well as a so-called “safe zone” between Sari Kani (Ras al-Ain) and Gire Spi (Tel Abyad) in northeast Syria that was taken by Ankara’s proxies after Operation Peace Spring, which displaced hundreds of thousands of civilians in October 2019.
