Erdogan tells Putin ‘get out of our way’ in Idlib
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to “get out of our way” in Syria’s last rebel bastion of Idlib yesterday in his first comments since 33 Turkish troops were killed in a regime air strike.
“I asked Mr Putin: ‘what’s your business there? If you establish a base, do so but get out of our way and leave us face-to-face with the regime’,” he said in Istanbul, recalling his phone conversation.
A Turkish official said yesterday that Turkey destroyed a chemical warfare facility after dozens of its soldiers were killed in the last-rebel enclave.
Lebanon’s Hezbollah group also lost at least eight fighters in north-west Syria in skirmishes with insurgents and air strikes by Turkey’s air force, an opposition war monitor and the militant group said yesterday.
The deaths marked the highest for the group in Syria in years as Hezbollah has pulled out many of its fighters from the neighbouring country.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 14 Hezbollah fighters were killed on Friday afternoon in the village of Talhiyeh when Turkish drones attacked their post as well as others of the Syrian army.
The Observatory said 48 Syrian soldiers have also been killed since Thursday in
Turkish bombardments and drone attacks in the region.
The Observatory’s chief, Rami Abdulrahman, said the 14 Hezbollah fighters included 10 Lebanese citizens and four of other nationalities, including at least one Iranian.
Hezbollah later released a statement listing the names and photographs of eight of its fighters, including an Iranian cleric identified as Sayyed Ali Zengani.
It gave no details other than saying that they “were martyred while performing their duties”.
More than 1,000 Hezbollah fighters, including several founding members, have been killed in Syria.
Overnight, the Turkish army destroyed “a chemical warfare facility, located some 13 kilometres south of Aleppo, along with a large number of other regime targets”, the senior official said.
However, the Observatory, which relies on sources inside the war-torn country, said that Turkey instead hit a military airport in eastern Aleppo, where the monitoring group says there are no chemical weapons.
Thirty-three Turkish soldiers were killed in an air strike by Russian-backed Syrian regime forces in the Idlib region on Thursday, the biggest Turkish military loss on the battlefield in recent years.
In a bid for more international backing of Turkey’s mission in Syria, which has so far been muted, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Ankara wants the United States to send its Patriot missile defence system to Turkey for backup in Idlib.
Moscow and Ankara have expressed hope for a “reduction in tension” in Syria during high-level talks between both sides, Russia’s foreign ministry said yesterday.
The two sides were focused on “continuing to fight terrorists recognised by the United Nations Security Council”, Moscow’s foreign ministry said.
The latest incident has further strained ties between Ankara and Moscow, whose relationship has been tested by breaches of a 2018 deal to prevent a Syrian regime offensive on Idlib.
As part of the agreement, Ankara set up 12 observation posts in the province but Syrian President Bashar Al Assad’s forces – backed by Russian air power – have pressed on with a relentless campaign to take back the region.