I think there is no confusion or misunderstanding at all, Russia and Turkey have been meeting and planning since 2015, all of this is what must’ve been agreed to at the table. Maybe this is the exchange for the Afrin OP? I believe Turkey has agreed with them to let Assad capture M5 & M4 highway and that would be it, Turkey gets the rest and keeps an area for the refugees, and Assad gets what he wants as well. It makes sense for Turkey not to make this agreement public, HTS would go ape. To me it looks like Erdogan has accepted and recognized Assad’s rule in Syria low key, and has agreed to contributing to the dismantlement of HTS. If you think about it in the end everyone gets what they want (sort of).