The Turkish-Russian deal to stop the dangerous escalation in Syria’s rebel bastion of Idlib is fraught with ambiguities on key issues that lie at the core of the conflict in the region. The March 5 deal — called “Sochi 2.0” by some in reference to the 2018 Sochi accord between Ankara and Moscow — might boil down to a short-lived respite before the conflict resumes with more conundrums for Turkey.

Ankara has poured some 12,000 troops into Idlib since early February to impede the advancing forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, which stepped up their thrusts across Idlib in early January, backed by Russian air power. Over the past month, the Turkish military set up 12 new outposts in the region, in addition to the 12 military observation points it had established under the 2018 Sochi deal. In a dramatic escalation, 36 Turkish soldiers were killed Feb. 27 in an airstrike on a Turkish convoy, prompting fierce retributions by Turkey. In the three days from Feb. 29 to March 2, Turkey rained fire on crucial Syrian army targets, using Turkish-developed armed drones of the Anka and TB2 types, Firtina howitzers and Kasirga and Bora missiles. 

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had a phone call with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on the morning of Feb. 28, as Turkey reeled from what was the deadliest attack on its forces in Syria thus far. Though the call failed to cool things on the ground, expectation mounted for an Erdogan-Putin summit to defuse the crisis. Keen to project a tough image to the Turkish public, Erdogan was eager to get Putin to come to Turkey, but the Russian leader seemed to dislike the idea and, eventually, it was Erdogan who headed to Moscow on March 5, accompanied by top-level officials. 

The six-hour talks resulted in a cease-fire agreement, but the deal left a number of critical issues ambiguous. Watching what happens on the ground is now the way to gauge whether or how those issues have been resolved.