ZCZC
BFF-25
SYRIA-CONFLICT-TURKEY-LEAD
Russia warns against Turkey operation in Syria
ISTANBUL, Feb 19, 2020 (BSS/AFP) – Turkey and Russia were engaged in a
fresh war of words on Wednesday after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan
threatened an “imminent” operation in Syria to end the regime’s brutal
assault on the last rebel enclave.
It came as Syrian aid workers issued an urgent call for a ceasefire and
international help for nearly a million people fleeing the regime onslaught
in the country’s northwestern Idlib province — the biggest wave of displaced
civilians in the nine-year conflict.
The Syrian NGO Alliance said displaced people are “escaping in search of
safety only to die from extreme weather conditions and lack of available
resources”.
“We are facing one of the worst protection crises and are dealing with a
mass movement of IDPs (internally displaced persons) who have nowhere to go,”
it told a press conference in Istanbul.
The group said a total of $336 million was needed for basic food, water,
shelter. Education resources were also needed for 280 million displaced
school-aged children.
Turkey, which backs some rebel groups in Idlib, has been pushing for a
renewed ceasefire in talks with Russia, eager to prevent another flood of
refugees into its territory adding to the 3.7 million Syrian refugees it
already hosts.
But Erdogan said talks with Moscow over the past fortnight had so far
failed to achieve “the desired result” and warned that Turkey would launch an
offensive into Syria unless Damascus pulled its forces back by the end of the
month.
“An operation in Idlib is imminent… We are counting down, we are making
our final warnings,” Erdogan said in a televised speech.
He called for Syrian forces to retreat behind Turkey’s military posts in
Idlib, which were set up under a 2018 deal with Russia designed to hold off a
regime advance.
The Kremlin quickly responded to Erdogan’s threat, warning that any
operation against Syrian forces would be “the worst scenario”.
– ‘Indiscriminate’ violence –
Earlier this week the United Nations said the displaced were mainly women
and children and warned that babies were dying of cold because aid camps are
full.
The Syrian NGOs called for the warring parties to allow safe access for
humanitarian groups and for a “complete ceasefire and end to human rights
violations”.
The regime offensive has killed more than 400 civilians since it began in
December, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
“The violence in northwest Syria is indiscriminate. Health facilities,
schools, residential areas, mosques and markets have been hit,” the UN head
of humanitarian affairs and emergency relief, Mark Lowcock, said earlier this
week.
Moscow has repeatedly vetoed Security Council resolutions.
The head of the World Health Organization said Tuesday that out of nearly
550 such facilities in northwest Syria, only about half were operational.
“We repeat: health facilities and health workers are not a legitimate
target,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told journalists in Geneva.
Syrian troops have reconquered swathes of Idlib and retaken the key M5
highway connecting the country’s four largest cities as well as the entire
surroundings of Aleppo city for the first time since 2012.
According to the Observatory, government forces made new gains in western
Aleppo province on Tuesday and were pushing towards the Sheikh Barakat
mountain.
That would give them a vantage point over swathes of Idlib and Aleppo
provinces, including sprawling camps housing tens of thousands of displaced
people.
BSS/AFP/RY/1735 hrs