(Zaman Al Wasl)- At least 4 civilians, including children, were killed in regime artillery fire at northern Idlib province, where Russia and Turkey agreed on a buffer zone in September, White Helmets rescuing agency said Thursday.
The regime artillery shells hit Jarjanaz village, which lies on the inner edge of the 15-20 km (9-13 mile) deep zone. Last Saturday, the regime shelling killed seven children and two women in Jarjanaz.
The deal to create the demilitarized zone, running along the contact line between rebels and regime territory, staved off an army offensive against Idlib.
Intermittent exchanges of fire have broken out in northwest Syria since the agreement between Russia, a key Damascus ally, and Turkey, which backs some rebel factions.
The United Nations says nearly 3 million people live in the northwest region and has warned against a battle to restore state rule there.
Tahrir al-Sham and other hardline groups have refused to pull out their fighters from Idlib despite the de-militarized zone which was announced by rebel backer Ankara and Moscow in September to separate regime troops from rebel fighters in Idlib and adjacent areas.
Meanwhile, Russia, Turkey and Iran failed to make any tangible progress in setting up a Syrian constitutional committee at a meeting in the Kazakh capital Astana, the office of U.N. Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura said in a statement Thursday.
De Mistura, who announced his resignation last month, capped his term as peace envoy with two days of talks in the Kazakh capital Astana.
"Special Envoy de Mistura deeply regrets ... there was no tangible progress in overcoming the ten-month stalemate on the composition of the constitutional committee," it said.
The two-day negotiations, concluding Thursday, are the 11th in Astana since Moscow began a diplomatic push in early 2017 that effectively sidelined other talks on Syria led by the United Nations
Zaman Al Wasl
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