On Tuesday, sit-in protesters pelted eggs and threw stones at a Russian-Turkish joint patrol on the Aleppo-Lattakia international M4 highway near the city of Ariha, 13 kilometers south of Idleb, northern Syria.
Local sources reported to Smart News that the protesters, who reject the deployment of joint patrols, threw stones and eggs at the Russian-Turkish patrol near the Ariha bridge.
On Apr. 13, 2020, Turkish forces used tear gas to scatter protesters who blocked the road near the town of al-Nayrab, as about 300 Turkish soldiers removed the protesters’ tents and expelled them from the al-Karamah 2 point, 900 meters east of al-Nayrab. The protesters responded by throwing stones at the soldiers, who used tear gas to scatter them.
The sources clarified that this is the tenth joint patrol on the M4 highway; the patrol included ten Russian and Turkish military vehicles, escorted by Russian warplanes and reconnaissance aircrafts.
The tenth patrol departed from the Syrian government forces-controlled village of al-Tronba, seven kilometers southeast of the city of Idleb near the Free Syrian Army and Islamist-controlled city of Ariha, and then returned.
On May 7, 2020, Turkey and Russia deployed the ninth patrol from al-Tronba to the perimeters of Ariha, while on May 5, 2020, the eighth patrol departed from al-Tronba and reached the village of Mseibin.
Earlier, people held a sit-in protest in al-Nayrab, rejecting the Turkish-Russian patrols on the M4 highway. The sit-in came after the Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, announced reaching a ceasefire agreement for Idleb. The agreement came into force on Mar. 6, 2020 at 00:01 a.m.
This article was edited by The Syrian Observer. The Syrian Observer has not verified the content of this story. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author.
