After the Turkish military attacked and killed scores of Syrian soldiers in the same area, Syria has launched a new offensive against al-Qaeda-held Saraqeb, and Syrian forces have reportedly entered the town.
Turkey is very averse to the idea of Syria taking any more territory from al-Qaeda, and Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu is demanding Russia immediately force Syria to stop all offensives in Idlib Province.
Cavusoglu said Russia must “immediately stop the regime,” and that Turkey considers Syria contesting these towns as a source of “humanitarian drama.”
Syria’s interest in Idlib, beyond it being part of Syria and just rife with Islamists, is that two towns, Maarat al-Numaan and Saraqeb, are on the main highway between Damascus and Aleppo. Syria would very much like full control of that highway, and having already taken the former town, they are pushing to take the later as well.
Russia is unlikely to get immediately involved, with the foreign ministry saying that some of its military specialists were killed in Idlib in attacks by militants in the deescalation zone. It’s the same area being contested, and the militants in question are the same Islamist bloc, including both al-Qaeda and some more overtly Turkish-backed factions.
It’s time for Russia to wring some Turkey necks.
So it’s cool for Turkey to kill terrorist-rebels, but it’s not ok for Syria to kill terrorist-rebels. Sounds legit, Turkey!
“Syria’s interest in Idlib, beyond it being part of Syria”
There is no “beyond”. That’s all that is needed.
Decisive military and diplomatic action against the Turks and the Americans in eastern Syria needs to be addressed.
Turkey is being supported by the evil empires and have encouraged Turkey to invade Syrian territories with the aid of the evil empires surrogate terrorist military the al Qaida.Of course we know who the evil empires are and have been directly connected to the Zionist of Israel and the U.S.. I have my doubts the Syria will back down and I am also certain that Russia will have Syria’s back. This situation could blowup but there is a good chance that Turkey may request a diplomatic visit to Moscow to try to cut another deal. Turkey could be the big loser in this recent blowup because currently Russia has some substantial infrastructure investments that could be a loss to Turkey if things go real sour.
Turkey will leave after they kill and cripple enough Syrian soldiers. A small favor for Israel goes a long way.