Fri 28 February 2020:
In a statement, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed “grave concern” of an escalation of violence and called for an immediate ceasefire. He said “the risk of even greater escalation grows by the hour” without urgent action.
Through his spokesman, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg also issued a statement condemning the “indiscriminate” air strikes by the Syrian regime and Russian forces.
Following the attack, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan held a two-hour emergency security meeting in Ankara that was attended by ministers and military officials.
Defence Minister Hulusi Akar and Turkish commanders directed operations in Syria at the Turkish border, state-owned Anadolu news agency said.
Turkey has sent thousands of troops and heavy military hardware into Syria and Erdogan has warned that Turkey would launch a full-scale offensive to repel Syrian forces unless they pulled back from Turkish observation posts in the region.
Russia sends two warships
Russia is sending two warships equipped with Kalibr cruise missiles to the Mediterranean Sea towards the Syrian coast, the Interfax news agency cited Russia’s Black Sea Fleet as saying on Friday.
We stand by Turkey
Erdogan’s spokesman, Ibrahim Kalin, who plays a senior role in foreign affairs, also spoke about the situation to US National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien.
“We stand by our NATO ally Turkey and continue to call for an immediate end to this despicable offensive by the Assad regime, Russia, and Iranian-backed forces,” the US State Department said in a statement.
The Turkish army is retaliating with artillery fire at Syrian government targets in Syria.
“All known” Syrian government targets are under fire by Turkish air and land support units, Turkey’s communications director Fahrettin Altun said on Friday, adding it will “respond in kind” to the deadly air strike.
Attacks on Turkish forces have caused severe tensions between the Syrian government’s key ally, Russia and Turkey, which backs certain opposition groups in Idlib.
Erdogan has previously pledged to launch a military operation to push back Syrian government forces if they did not retreat from a line of Turkish observations posts by the end of February.
Turkey ‘opens the gates’
Meanwhile, Turkish media quoted officials as saying Turkey’s police, coastguard and border security officials had been ordered against trying to stop Syrian refugees from reaching Europe, in anticipation of their imminent arrival from Idlib.
“We have decided, effectively immediately, not to stop Syrian refugees from reaching Europe by land or sea,” one official who requested anonymity told Reuters news agency. “All refugees, including Syrians, are now welcome to cross into the European Union.”
The threat to open the way for refugees to Europe would, if executed, reverse a pledge Turkey made to the European Union in 2016 and could quickly draw Western powers into the standoff over Idlib and stalled negotiations between Ankara and Moscow.
The burden of hosting refugees “is too heavy for any single country to carry”, the official said.
Turkey already hosts more than 3.6 million Syrian refugees and fears a new influx of hundreds of thousands of others, said Al Jazeera’s Hashem Ahelbarra, reporting from the Turkish-Syrian border.
“In the coming days, [it is likely] to see Turkey take an aggressive role and ask the European Union and NATO, in particular, to take a very strong stance when it comes to what is happening now in Idlib,” he said.
“Turkey feels that it is fighting this fight on its own, while it considers what it is doing as an attempt to put an end to the humanitarian [crisis in Idlib].”
The fast-moving events came as Turkey-backed Syrian opposition fighters retook a strategic northwestern town from government forces on Thursday, opposition activists said, cutting a key highway just days after the government reopened it for the first time since 2012.
Despite losing the town of Saraqeb, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces made major gains to the south. Al-Assad now controls almost the entire southern part of Idlib province after capturing more than 20 villages Thursday, state media and opposition activists said.
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