Turkey threatens to hit back

TURKEY Time is running out for three million civilians on Syria’s border with Turkey, caught in the crosshairs of a brutal regime offensive that has led Ankara to threaten military action against Bashar al-Assad if his forces do not pull back. Turkey’s Defense Ministry said it would strike back at regime troops and allied militias if its military posts in Syria’s northwest Idlib province were threatened, echoing President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s ultimatum last week that Assad must withdraw to a previously agreed ceasefire line before the end of February.

Erdoğan’s communications director, Fahrettin Altun, said the escalation in Idlib – which led to the deaths of eight Turkish military personnel on Monday – was unacceptable. “We cannot tolerate what has been unfolding in Idlib. We will seek accountability for our martyrs,” he told a Turkey-Syria media forum in Istanbul yesterday. “Bashar al-Assad’s place in the future ... is not the presidential palace but the international court of justice at The Hague.”

Turkey is seeking to shore up a de-escalation agreement for Idlib brokered in 2018 by Moscow – which backs Assad – and Ankara, which supports some rebel groups in the area. The ceasefire has been routinely broken by both sides, but an attritional campaign by Syria has escalated since Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), formerly alQaida’s Syrian affiliate, seized control of most of the area last year.

(The Guardian)