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Tehran Meeting: Further Monitoring of Turkish Borders, Deploying more Hezbollah Militants | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu


Moscow- Syria battlefield recent complications were the main topic of discussion at the Tehran-held meeting on Thursday and which brought together each of Russian Minister of Defense Sergey Shoygu, Syrian regime chief of staff Fahd Jassem al-Freij and Iranian defense minister Hossein Dehghan.

Russian analysts agree that Iran had no choice in the matter of calling for such a meeting, after the grave losses suffered when attempting entry at Aleppo’s rural areas, not to mention the ignominious failure of its recent offensive on restoring comprehensive control over Aleppo.

The Russian ministry stated that the meeting was aimed at looking into greater cooperation of efforts, in light of the attack staged by the Syrian regime forces across the southwestern axis of the Raqqa province, the ISIS-stronghold.

Russian daily Kommersant reported on feed from the Russian ministry of defense that the Syrian regime, upholding position, confronting and dodging strikes launched by armed groups, are placed in a tight spot.

Seizing Russian attacks against allegedly rebel-held areas had complicated operation progress for the regime forces. Russian forces are soon re-launching strikes against impact areas as to rescue Syrian regime and Iranian ground forces, Kommersant reported.

The third topic conferred at the meeting was imperative need for stepping up supervision across Turkish-Syrian borders.

As Russia increases air campaign activity, Tehran will cover the terrain by deploying so-called Hezbollah proxies, the Russian daily reported based on details from the Russian defense ministry.

In a statement made to Asharq Al-Awsat on the Tehran meeting, Russian military expert Vladimir Evseev expressed his belief that it is not optional for Russia to sit out and lay waiting, otherwise Aleppo will be lost.

He considered the decision taken on increasing Russian activity nearby Aleppo critical. Moreover, he stressed that Russia will not repeat the Afghanistan experience, and thus will not leap into any uncalculated operations.

He added that Russia will not fight instead of the Syrians themselves; on the other hand, it will increase military activity.

The Russian measures come in line with the situation beginning to unravel out of control, and Iranians are going through insufferable losses, especially in Khan Touman. Evseev said that Iranians are depending on our help and blame losses on the Russian fallback.

Evseev expected that the meeting study an enhanced collaborative method which offers a better Russian air support. He also clarified that the Iranians have ground troops, nonetheless do not have potent air power, and Iran lays concerned with the human losses at hand. Iran seeks to secure sky coverage from the Russians.