Syrian, Turkish armies engage in new deadly clashes in Idlib

ankara — Two more Turkish soldiers were killed on Wednesday in a Syrian government attack in Syria’s northwest, the country’s Defence Ministry said, as steady clashes between the two national armies continued to rack up casualties.

Turkey has sent thousands of troops into the area to support Syrian insurgents holed up there, but hasn’t been able to stop a Russian-backed Syrian government offensive to retake Idlib province.

A Syrian opposition war monitor said nine Syrian soldiers were also killed in Turkish drone attacks in the area.

The Turkish Defence Ministry’s statement said the latest Syrian attack on its troops also wounded six soldiers.

The assault came as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was scheduled to depart for Moscow, where he said he aims to broker a ceasefire in Syria with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“We expect to reach a shared view of the cause of the current crisis, its consequences and agree on a set of measures to overcome it,” Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said of the upcoming meeting.

Russian officials have said they hold Turkey responsible for the collapse of a ceasefire agreement reached in Sochi, Russia in 2018. They say Ankara has failed to honour the deal and rein in militants who continued attacking Syrian and Russian targets. Turkey has rejected the Russian assertion, saying Ankara was making progress against radical groups in Idlib when the Syrian government launched its offensive.

Earlier on Wednesday, Russian Defence Ministry spokesman Maj-Gen. Igor Konashenkov assailed Turkey for shielding “terrorists” in Idlib, a statement that reflected Moscow’s forceful posture ahead of the Syria talks.

In a statement, Konashenkov said that under the 2018 agreement with Russia, Turkey was obliged to ensure that militants in Idlib pull back 15-20km from the de-escalation zone along with their heavy weapons. Instead, he argued, Al Qaeda-linked militants “and other terrorist groups pushed moderate rebels north toward the border with Turkey”.

Konashenkov also assailed the West for turning a blind eye to Turkish military action in Syria “in violation of international law” and treating Turkish threats to destroy Syrian army units as a “legitimate self-defence”.

Syrian opposition activists reported intense clashes near the government-held town of Saraqeb that sits on a major highway linking Syria’s two largest cities, Damascus and Aleppo. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, said Turkish drone attacks near Saraqeb killed nine Syrian soldiers.

The Russian military said in a statement on Wednesday that “a group of terrorists” made a failed attempt to detonate ammunition placed next to chemical storage tanks in the western part of Saraqeb two days ago. —