MOSCOW, February 12. /TASS/. Moscow plans to continue cooperation with Ankara aimed at resolving the situation in the Syrian region of Idlib, for this purpose a schedule of contacts is in the works, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said at a briefing on Wednesday.
"We expect that in the near future Russian and Turkish representatives will carry on working out a complex solution to the Idlib problem. The other day, the Russian inter-departmental delegation visited Ankara, and now a schedule of regular contacts between agencies is being drafted," she said.
The diplomat emphasized that "all the de-escalation zones were established as a provisional measure which at no means should undermine the country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity," should not hamper the fight against terrorist groups," in case they were "designated as such by the United Nations Security Council."
Earlier, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said that a delegation representing the foreign and defense ministries as well as special services would visit Moscow in the near future.
Idlib is the only Syrian region that has been controlled by illegal armed groups since 2012. A northern de-escalation zone was set up in Idlib in 2017 to give shelter to militants who refused to surrender arms in Eastern Ghouta and southern Syria.