WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — On Thursday, Russia, Turkey and Iran signed a memorandum on the establishment of four safe zones in the Arab country as part of the Astana talks on the Syrian settlement. The United States has observer status at the talks.
"We'll look at them. It's all in process right now. It's not been decided, in the sense that these are the specific safe zones, who's going to be ensuring they're safe, who is signing up for it, and who is specifically to be kept out of them," Mattis said.
The four zones span the northwestern Idlib province and parts of the neighboring Latakia, Hama and Aleppo, the north of the central Homs province, Eastern Ghouta near Damascus, as well as southern Daraa and Quneitra regions. The memorandum came into force at 21:00 GMT on Friday.
