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Syria restores control over border with Jordan

The Russian general recalled that international observers’ work in that area had been suspended in 2012 for security reasons

MOSCOW, August 2. /TASS/. Control over the Syrian-Jordanian border has been fully restored after the Russian Aerospace Forces’ operation, chief of the Russian General Staff’s Main Operations Directorate, Colonel-General Sergei Rudskoi, said on Thursday.

"Control over the Syrian-Jordanian border has been fully restored. Conditions have been created for resuming the activities of the UN peacekeeping force deployed to the area separating Syria and Israel in the Golan Heights in accordance with the 1974 UN Security Council resolution," he said.

The general recalled that international observers’ work in that area had been suspended in 2012 for security reasons.

"Today UN peacekeepers accompanied by Russian military police patrolled the area for the first time over the past six years. To rule out possible provocations, eight observation posts of the Russian Armed Forces’ military police are to be deployed along the Bravo line opposite the UN posts. Once the situation stabilizes, these posts will be handed over to Syrian government troops," Rudskoi stressed.

The militants surrender

Members of illegal armed groups active in south Syria have surrendered more than 650 weapons and pieces of military equipment, Sergei Rudskoi added. 

"Illegal armed groups have surrendered more than 650 weapons and pieces of military equipment, including 39 tanks, 28 infantry fighting vehicles and armored personnel carriers, ten Shilka self-propelled anti-aircraft artillery guns, 35 anti-aircraft guns, 60 mortars, 23 antitank missile launchers," the Russian general pointed out.

An operation to eliminate illegal armed groups in Syria’s southwestern provinces of Suwayda, Daraa and Quneitra took place during the past month. Militants affiliated with the Islamic state and Jabhat al-Nusra terror groups (both outlawed in Russia) who were trying to disguise themselves as members of the "moderate opposition" used to control at least 55% of the southern de-escalation zone.