ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned Tuesday that Ankara will not allow Damascus to “gain ground” in the opposition held northwest Syrian province of Idlib, a day after deadly clashes between Turkish and regime troops.
A Turkish military convoy was shelled by the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) on Monday soon after it entered Idlib. Seven Turkish soldiers and a civilian contractor of the Turkish defense ministry were killed.
Turkish forces counterattacked later that day, “neutralizing” 76 SAA soldiers, the Turkish defence ministry said.
Syrian state media said there were no casualties among regime forces.
Speaking to journalists as he returned from a visit to Ukraine, Erdogan said operations against the SAA will continue.
“This process will definitely continue because Syria is currently trying to gain ground by driving those innocent and grieving people in Idlib towards our border. We will not allow Syria to gain ground here [in Idlib],” he said.
With Russian air support, Damascus launched a military operation in December to retake Idlib, which has been under the control of former al-Qaeda affiliate Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) since 2012.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s troops and allies seized control of the strategic town of Maaret al-Numan last week.
They also took control of at least seven villages in the Syrian flashpoint town of Saraqeb, according to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR).
“Reliable sources have informed SOHR that the regime forces are advancing rapidly into the eastern countryside of Saraqeb town in the light of opposition factions and jihadists’ pullout from several villages there,” the war monitor said.
Saraqeb is located between the strategic M4 and M5 highways.
Asked whether Turkey will launch a military operation similar to Peace Spring – launched against Kurdish forces in northern Syrian on October 9 – Erdogan said Tuesday’s retaliatory attack was “the first leg of Idlib operation”.
“They think we are kidding. I believe that the operation has given them a serious lesson but we will not stop but continue with the same determination,” he said.
Ankara-Damascus relations have been thorny since the Syrian uprising began in 2011. Turkey quickly sided with the armed opposition and called for the overthrow of the Assad regime.
Turkey today backs dozens of Syrian opposition groups, providing them with logistical, political, military and financial support. It has also used them in its cross-border operations against Kurdish forces in northern Syria.
About half a million people have been displaced from Idlib province to the Syria-Turkey border since December 1, according to United Nations figures. The SOHR puts the figure at 800,000, while Erdogan claims more than a million have fled to the border.
There are an estimated three million people inside Idlib, most of them Syrians who have already been displaced from elsewhere in the country.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said Monday that more than 50 health facilities “ceased operations amid mass displacement and hostilities in northwest Syria last month”.
It called for “renewed international commitment to bring an end to this protracted and devastating crisis”.
“To fill the gap created by closed health facilities; we are revising our referral network, trying to sustain stocks of life-saving medicine for those with non-communicable diseases and supporting the relocation of some of the health facilities,” said Rick Brennan, WHO’s regional emergency director.
