Beirut: Several Turkish armoured vehicles and tanks entered rebel-controlled northwestern Syria early on Friday, the latest reinforcements sent in by Ankara amid the Syrian government offensive.
The Syrian government, backed by its ally Russia, has kept up a military offensive in Idlib province, aimed at securing a strategic highway that runs along rebel-controlled territory. President Bashar Assad's forces have seized dozens of rebel-held towns and villages in the past two months, displacing hundreds of people in the process.
Turkey, which backs the Syrian opposition and has been monitoring a cease-fire in the rebel enclave, protested the government offensive, calling it a violation of the truce it negotiated with Russia. In recent weeks, Ankara sent in troops and equipment to reinforce monitoring points it set up to observe a previous cease-fire, which has since crumbled, but also deployed around towns threatened by the Syrian military advances.
The deployment and the new defensive role brought Turkish troops into a direct and rare confrontation with Syria troops that killed at least eight Turkish military and civilian personnel and 13 Syrian soldiers on Monday.
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Syrian government troops took control of the former rebel town of Saraqeb this week. The town is strategic because it sits on the intersection of two major highways, one linking the capital, Damascus, to the north, and another connecting the country’s west and east.
The Turkish military posts erected around Saraqeb didn't stop the military advance, which left some of those Turkish posts are now behind Syrian lines.
For weeks, Syrian troops, backed by the Russian air force, have been advancing in rebel territory as the cease-fire deal reached in 2018 unravelled. The offensive has displaced over half a million people, many of them arriving in open air and temporary shelters, often near the borders with Turkey. Idlib and nearby rural Aleppo are the last rebel-held areas in Syria and are home to more than 3 million people, most of them already displaced by previous rounds of violence.
The violence has also raised tension between Moscow and Ankara, which have been working together to secure cease-fires and political talks despite backing opposite sides of the conflict.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said a Russian delegation is scheduled to arrive in Ankara on Saturday to discuss the situation in Idlib. A meeting between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin could follow “if necessary,” Cavusoglu told reporters.
“We will do whatever is necessary to stop the human drama, the disaster (in Idlib)," Cavusoglu said.
(With inputs from AFP)
