Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Wednesday, November 20 that Ankara had assured Moscow that it did not plan to launch a new military operation in Syria despite earlier comments, the TASS news agency reported, according to The New York Times.

Turkey's state-owned Anadolu agency on Monday cited Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu as saying Ankara would launch a new military operation in northeast Syria if the area was not cleared of what he called terrorists.

Lavrov also said that the withdrawal of Kurdish militants in northern Syria was almost complete, RIA reported.