Fears of escalation after 33 Turkish troops killed in Syria’s Idlib

Turkey warned on Friday it was opening the gates for refugees to flee to Europe after an air strike blamed on Damascus killed 33 Turkish soldiers in Syria.

The international community voiced fears of a rapidly-rising risk of escalation after the attack by Russian-backed Syrian forces in the province of Idlib, where President Bashar al-Assad is waging a bloody campaign to oust rebels from their last holdout.

The deadly bombardment has added to weeks of growing tensions between rebel supporter and NATO member Ankara and Damascus ally Moscow.

Adding to the tensions, Moscow announced that two of its warships were transitting Friday through the Bosphorus Strait in Istanbul in plain sight of the city

The UN has repeatedly warned that the fighting in Idlib could potentially create the most serious humanitarian crisis since the start of the civil war start in 2011.

But Russian vetoes, often backed by China, have chronically crippled UN action in Syria.

Turkey retaliated to Thursday’s strike by hitting Damascus regime targets “from the air and ground,” President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s communications director Fahrettin Altun said.

The United States condemned the Syrian action, and NATO said it would hold urgent talks on the crisis on Friday.

In a move that could have major repercussions for Turkey’s neighbours to the west, Ankara said it would open the way for refugees to go to Europe.

“We will no longer keep the doors closed for refugees who want to go to Europe,” an official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

– Risk of ‘bloodbath’ –

Turkey also called on the international community to establish a no-fly zone over Idlib, where regime forces have since December clawed back chunks of the region, forcing close to one million people to flee their homes and shelters amid bitter cold.

The United Nations said Monday that the latest fighting was coming “dangerously close” to encampments of the displaced, risking an imminent “bloodbath”.

Turkey, which is already home to around 3.6 million Syrian refugees, fears more people arriving in the country where there is growing popular discontent against their presence…….read more

 

Source: AFP

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