ANKARA, February 10. /TASS/. A delegation from Russia is holding talks with Turkish Presidential Spokesman Ibrahim Kalin on the situation in Idlib, the NTV channel informs.

According to the channel, the meeting is held at the presidential palace in Ankara behind closed doors.

Earlier, talks between Turkish Deputy Foreign Minister Sedat Onap and members of the Russian delegation (Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Vershinin and Russian Special Presidential Envoy for Syria Alexander Lavrentyev) were held in Ankara.

Earlier on Monday, Omer Celik, a spokesman for the Erdogan-led Justice and Development Party, stated that so far, the ongoing talks in Ankara had not brought any concrete results.

The Russian delegation is currently holding talks with its Turkish partners in Ankara due to a recent escalation of tensions in Syria’s Idlib. The Russian Foreign Ministry informed earlier that the Russian and Turkish military had made an attempt to establish a ceasefire in the Idlib area, however, terrorist attacks persisted. As a result, military specialists from Russia and Turkey were killed.

On February 5, Syrian government forces entered the town of Saraqib, an outpost of the Jabhat al-Nusra terrorist group (banned in Russia) in the Idlib province. Saraqib is a town of strategic importance that sits at the junction of two main roads connecting Latakia and Damascus with Aleppo.

In the past week, the Syrian government forces have shelled Turkey’s positions in the area twice, which led to the death of ten Turkish soldiers and three civilian personnel.

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 Syria’s southern regions. The Turkish army has 12 observation outposts in the province.