About 33 Turkish soldiers were killed in an airstrike by Syrian regime forces in the Idlib province, said the governor in the southeastern province of Hatay. He accounted for the total death toll while raising concern of further escalation in conflicts that might lead to another crisis for refugees.
Since it launched thousands of troops in Idlib, this is the largest death toll in a single day for turkey. Idlib is home to some three million people, yet, the region is facing up Russia backed regime offensive.
The fierce bombardments and ground attacks have forced the millions of people to flee from their land and migrate near the Turkish border, including women and children.
Turkey cautioned it is attacking “all known targets of the Syrian regime” in response.
The UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres expressed “grave concern” owing to the intensification of violence and called for an armistice.
He told, “the risk of even greater escalation grows by the hour”.
The US state department responded saying its “very concerned” over the latest development while showing solidarity with the Turkish military stating “we are standing by our NATO ally Turkey”.
“We stand by our NATO ally Turkey and continue to call for an immediate end to this despicable offensive by the Assad regime, Russia and Iranian-backed forces”, said a state department representative.
The NATO secretary-general condemned the “indiscriminate” attack on Turkish troops through his spokesman in a statement,
The governor of Hatay, Rahmi Dogan announced 22 soldiers were killed in airstrikes by the Syrian regime earlier, however, the death toll steadily increased.
Ahead of the attack, the Turkish president Tayyep Erdogan conducted an emergency meeting fr two-hours attended by military officials and ministers.
According to state media, the Turkish minister called on NATO’s Stoltenberg.
The Turkish military retaliated with guns fire at the enemy’s targets in Syria.
Turkey’s communication director Fahrettin Altun said: “’ All known’ Syrian government targets are under fire by Turkish air and land support units”.
He added Turkey will “respond in kind” to the regime government airstrikes.
Attacks on Turkish forces further escalates the conflict among the Syrian regime’s chief ally Russia and Turkey in Idlib.
Earlier, Erdogan vowed to commence a military attack to force back the regime forces if they did not withdraw from a line of Turkish observation posts till the end of February.
Turkish officials told the news agency “Turkey’s police, coastguard and border security officials had been ordered against trying to stop Syrian refugees from reaching Europe”.
The news agency reported that Turkey is to open its Idlib border to let the refugees pass to Europe freely.
The reporter from the Turkish-Syrian border accounted that turkey is now hosting more than 3.6 million Syrian refugees.
He added, “In the coming days, [it is likely] to see Turkey take an aggressive role and ask the European Union and NATO, in particular, to take a very strong stance when it comes to what is happening now in Idlib”.
Further on “Turkey feels that it is fighting this fight on its own while it considers what is doing an attempt to put an end to the humanitarian [crisis in Idlib]”.–Worldwide News