Turkey and Russia face off in Syria as fighting escalates, plane downed
US says willing to provide ammunition to Turkey
reyhanlI, turkey/amman (reuters) – turkey shot down a syrian government warplane on tuesday over northwest syria, where fighting has intensified in recent days, bringing turkish and russian forces close to direct conflict in the battle over the last swathe of syria still held by rebels.
It was the third syrian warplane turkey has shot down since sunday in an escalating campaign against syrian president Bashar assad’s forces. nato-member turkey supports the rebels, while assad relies on his superpower ally russia.
With more than a million refugees amassing since december on the turkish border, the battle for syria’s Idlib province has brought what the un fears might be the worst humanitarian crisis of the nine-year-old syrian civil war.
“this relief operation has been overwhelmed. there needs to be more of everything. the first thing is money,” un under-secretary-General for humanitarian affairs mark lowcock told reporters at a trans-shipment point for supplies in southern turkey.
Fighting was raging north of the strategic crossroads town of saraqeb, recaptured on monday by syrian troops, one of several times that the town, which controls access to Idlib city and aleppo, has changed hands in recent weeks.
syrian state media said the army was now combing the town and had dealt heavy blows to fighters still holed up in hideouts on its outskirts. a state television correspondent said turkey was firing artillery to halt the advance.
rebels said the government was aided by thousands of Iranian-backed lebanese and Iraqi militiamen brought from other areas to help storm the town after two days of failed attempts.
the us, for its part, is willing to give nato ally turkey ammunition alongside humanitarian assistance in northwestern syria where ankara is in a deepening standoff with russia, the us special representative for the region said.
addressing reporters in turkey’s border province of hatay, james jeffrey said the us will ensure that us-made equipment is ready for the turkish military.
the us ambassador to turkey, david satterfield, said at the same briefing the us is examining a request for defenses.
“We’re willing to provide – for example, president (trump) mentioned this – ammunition,” jeffrey said, adding counterparts had also “very much stressed” the need for humanitarian assistance.
“turkey is a nato ally. We have a very, very big foreign military sales program, much of the turkish military uses american equipment,” he said. “We will make sure that that equipment is ready. as a nato partner we share information intelligence... and we are going to ensure that they have what they need there.”
a syrian general who has defected to the opposition, ahmad rahhal, said a russian announcement on monday that it had deployed military police in saraqeb was aimed at blocking turkey from trying to help rebels reclaim the town.
the turkish defense ministry said on tuesday its forces had shot down a syrian l-39 ground attack jet. syria’s state-run sana news agency confirmed the plane had been shot down over Idlib province by missiles fired from turkish warplanes.
turkish president recep tayyip erdogan and russia’s Vladimir putin are due to meet on thursday to seek ways to avert conflict. asked about the prospect of direct clashes with turkey, Kremlin spokesman dmitry peskov told reporters: “We hope that we’re able to absolutely minimize this risk thanks to the close contact between the two countries’ militaries.”
turkey, already home to 3.6 million syrian refugees, says it cannot take any more. It wants to push assad’s forces back to lines agreed in a 2017 deal brokered with russia and Iran, which left a buffer zone in northern syria near its border.
us ambassador to the united nations Kelly craft, in turkey inspecting the relief efforts, announced $180 million in additional funding for the humanitarian crisis in Idlib.
“humanitarian aid is only a response but the solution is an immediate ceasefire,” craft told reporters. “this is not something that just happened. this is planned by the assad regime,” craft said. “It is cruel and brutal.”