Turkey, Russia agree to coordinate action closely

• Putin, Erdogan vow to battle terrorists in Idlib
• Putin says withdrawal of US troops from Syria will be a positive step

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan at a meeting in Moscow on Wednesday night vowed to coordinate their actions more closely in Syria.

"Cooperation between Russia and Turkey is a touchstone for Syrian peace and stability," Erdogan said in translated comments at a joint press conference after their talks, which lasted around three hours.

"With our Russian friends we intend to strengthen our coordination even more."

"We agreed how we'll coordinate our work in the near future," Putin said, calling the talks which included the countries' defence ministers "effective".

At the start of their meeting in the Kremlin, Putin addressed Erdogan as "dear friend," saying that their countries "work on issues of regional security and actively cooperate on Syria".

Erdogan used the same term for Putin and said "our solidarity makes a weighty contribution to the security of the region".

The two leaders are on opposite sides of the Syria conflict: Russia provides critical support to the Syrian government, while Turkey has backed rebel groups fighting President Bashar al-Assad's forces.

Despite this, they have worked closely to find a political solution to the seven-year conflict.

Russia and Turkey have agreed to coordinate ground operations in Syria following US President Donald Trump's shock announcement last month about pulling 2,000 American troops out of Syria.

Putin said that if carried out, the withdrawal of US troops from northeastern Syria "will be a positive step, it will help stabilise the situation in this restive area".