Protesters cheer as men stand on a Turkish military vehicle during a joint Turkish-Russian patrol on the M4 highway in Idlib Province (Khalil Ashawi/Reuters)

Protesters have challenged the first joint Turkish-Russian patrols in northwest Syria, blocking the M4 highway crossing Idlib Province.

The demonstrators chanted and burning tires on the east-west route on Sunday. Both the Russian Government and pro-opposition activists said the patrols were shortened because of the rallies.

The patrols are part of a March 5 agreement, between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, for a halt to a 10-month Russian-regime offensive and an effective partition of Idlib Province.

The offensive, which killed almost 2,000 civilians and displaced more than 1 million, reoccupied almost all of northern Hama Province and about half of Idlib Province in the east and south.

As Turkish and Russian military delegations completed the arrangements for the patrols, the protesters — including women and children — began gathering on Friday to challenge the “Russian occupation forces”.

The troops, who are planning to patrol a 12-km (7.5-mile) wide corridor along the M4, moved west of the town of Saraqeb but then turned back.

Russia enabled pro-Assad forces to seize Saraqeb, at the junction of the M4 and Damascus-to-Aleppo highways, three days before the Erdoğan-Putin meeting.

Footage from Saturday: