Erdogan Warns of ‘Imminent’ Aggression

Russia Warns Turkey Against Attacking Syria

Date: 19 February 2020 - 22:13

News ID: ۷۶۳۶۴

MOSCOW (Dispatches) -- Turkey and Russia exchanged warnings on Wednesday after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatened an "imminent” operation in Syria to end the government’s assault on the last terrorist enclave.
Erdogan said talks with Moscow over the past fortnight had so far failed to achieve "the desired result” and warned that Turkey would launch an offensive into Syria unless Damascus pulled its forces back by the end of the month.
"An operation in Idlib is imminent... We are counting down, we are making our final warnings,” Erdogan said in a televised speech.
He called for Syrian forces to retreat behind Turkey’s military posts in Idlib, which were set up under a 2018 deal with Russia designed to hold off a government advance.
The Kremlin quickly responded to Erdogan’s threat, warning that any operation against Syrian forces would be "the worst scenario”.
With Turkey moving large numbers of reinforcements into Idlib in recent weeks, Defense Minister Hulusi Akar emphasized that it was "out of the question for us to withdraw from our observation posts”.
"If there is any sort of attack against them, we will retaliate in kind,” he told reporters in Ankara.
Erdogan said talks with Russia on the conflict in Idlib province were far from meeting Turkey’s demands.
Turkey and Russia back opposing sides in the nine-year-old Syrian conflict but have collaborated toward finding a political solution to end it.

Syrian troops have reconquered swathes of Idlib and retaken the key M5 highway connecting the country’s four largest cities as well as the entire surroundings of Aleppo city for the first time since 2012.
A Syrian passenger jet landed in Aleppo on Wednesday from Damascus, marking the resumption of domestic flights between Syria’s two largest cities for the first time since 2012, while the government’s onslaught continued nearby with airstrikes reported in several terrorist-held towns and villages.
The flight carrying Syrian officials and journalists was an important symbol that President Bashar Assad’s government has consolidated control over the northwestern province of Aleppo and seized the last segments of the strategic M5 highway linking Aleppo to Damascus. The motorway is being repaired and is scheduled to reopen in coming days for the first time in eight years.
Government forces have for weeks been conducting a crushing military campaign to recapture the Aleppo countryside and parts of neighboring Idlib province in northwestern Syria, the last terrorist-held areas in the country.
The commercial Syrian Air flight landed in Aleppo after a 40-minute flight from Damascus and was welcomed by a military band on the tarmac. Syrian warplanes flew low overhead in a show of force and celebration. Syrian Tourism Minister Rami Radwan Martini and Transport Minister Ali Hammoud had earlier opened the airport for business.
Hammoud called the opening of the airport is a "great joy” for Syrians and a "dream” for the ministry. It has been closed since 2012 due to fighting after Aleppo fell into rebel hands.
The Syrian army drove the terrorists out of Aleppo in December 2016. The airport opened briefly in 2017 but closed again due to security concerns.
Airstrikes and shelling were reported Wednesday on several terrorist-held areas, mostly near the towns of Daret Azzeh and Atareb.
Turkey arms and trains militants opposed to the Syrian government and has sent thousands of troops and military reinforcements into Idlib in recent weeks to try to stem the government advance. That has led to rare clashes between Turkish and Syrian troops with deaths on both sides.
Russian officials on Wednesday held Turkey responsible for the collapse of the cease-fire deal that was reached during talks in Sochi, Russia, saying Ankara had not held up its end of the deal to rein in militants, who continued attacking Syrian and Russian targets.
"We were satisfied with the agreements reached a year ago in Sochi,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
"We absolutely stopped being satisfied when militias and terrorists in Idlib started their attacks on the Syrian military and Russian military objects. That’s where our satisfaction ended.”