GENEVA, Nov. 15 (Xinhua) -- The situation in Syria's northwestern province of Idlib, the last major rebel stronghold, has been relatively calm in the past two months, but there are many signs that "bad things will happen" unless there are further breakthroughs in the negotiations with the numerous armed groups inside, warned a senior UN Adviser on Thursday.
UN senior adviser for Syria Jan Egeland told a press briefing here Thursday that there is no solution to freeze the situation as it is now, and the civilians in the province need better and normalized situation.
"I feared that this month of November would be the most horrific war month potentially of the war so far," he noted.
He said the worry in Idlib is very clear. That most of the underlying unresolved conflict issues including that they are under control of armed opposition groups shows that the worst case scenario is still possible.
According to the UN official, there are also many instances of infighting among groups, bad behavior by groups, recklessness and ruthlessness inside the region, and there is more shelling along the outer perimeter of the so-called buffer zone around Idlib.
"It's very tense inside the zone, the civilians inside, 2-3 million of them, still make us thinking whether this is quiet before the big storm or this is quiet before peace," he said.
Jan told journalists that both Russia and Turkey had said that they will go to great lengths to avoid military action, to avoid escalated armed conflict in Idlib, as long as their forces and bases are not attacked.
"What makes me worried really for Idlib is that I haven't seen a lot of talks with or signals from the listed groups, listed as terrorist groups, that they are going to lay down their arms or seek amnesty," he said.
"That's why we urge in all of the meetings Russia, Turkey, Syrian government and everyone who has influence to talk with everybody," he said.
Syria's permanent representative to the United Nations Bashar Jaafari has insisted that his country will retake Idlib province, saying that "we allow for diplomatic and political work. But our right under the UN Charter and international law allows us to fully recover Idlib when we deem necessary".
Earlier in September of this year, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan agreed to establish a demilitarized zone within Idlib in a bid to avert a full-scale assault on the rebel stronghold, which humanitarians feared would have severe consequences for the 3 million civilians living there, many of them displaced people.
On Wednesday, a spokesman for Libya's eastern-based army also warned of a possible infiltration of terrorists from Syria to Libya after suffering losses there.
"The province of Idlib, north of Syria, currently has more than 18,000 terrorists of Libyan and other Arab nationalities. Information indicates that while the Syrian army continues to pressure them, they will be expelled to Sudan, and from there to Libya and other African countries," the spokesman told a news conference.
