Russia and Syrian regime carried out air strikes in the Idlib de-escalation zone, northwestern Syria, killing at least 15 civilians, a Syrian civil defence group announced on Thursday, as Turkey sent more reinforcements into the region, setting up new positions in an attempt to stop a regime offensive.
The White Helmets civil defence group said 15 civilians were killed after air strikes targeted Idlib's city centre and villages.
Syrian regime forces were also locked in clashes with militants and allied rebels in a key highway town in northwest Syria, a monitor said, despite Turkey warning pro-regime militants to back off.
"Fighting is ongoing in the south of the town of Saraqeb," war monitor Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
Ankara sent in reinforcements north of the town of Saraqeb overnight, a move that came after the Syrian regime targeted Turkish observation posts killing seven Turkish soldiers and a Turkish civilian member of the military on Monday.
Ankara said it targeted more than 50 regime positions eliminating over 70 regime personnel in retaliatory attacks.
Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan threatened on Wednesday to drive back Syrian troops in Idlib unless they withdraw by the end of the month to stem an assault which he said had displaced nearly 1 million people.
Erdogan has criticised Russia, a key backer of Bashar al-Assad's regime, for failing to enforce peace agreements in the region and called for Moscow to "better understand our sensitivities in Syria".
"From now we will not turn a blind eye to any step that constitutes the violation of the agreements," he added.
A military source told Zaman al-Wasl that armed factions backed by Turkish artillery barrages launched early Thursday an attack on regime forces east of Idlib.
In Moscow, the Foreign Ministry announced that Russian "specialists" have been killed in a northern Syrian province alongside Turkish servicemen, without saying when the incident occurred. The ministry blamed "terrorists" for the deaths, saying that the attacks in Idlib province intensified in January.
Syrian regime troops have been advancing since December into the country’s last rebel stronghold, which spans across the Idlib province and parts of nearby Aleppo region.
Turkish troops are deployed in some of those rebel-held areas to monitor a ceasefire that has been continuously violated by the regime.
Syrian families who are being forcibly displaced due to the ongoing attacks carried out by Assad regime and its allies are on their way to safer zones with their belongings near Turkish border, in Idlib, Syria on February 4, 2020.
-Russian delegation to visit Turkey-
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), an opposition war monitoring group, said Syrian warplanes on Thursday attacked a military air base in the village of Taftanaz where Turkish troops deployed recently.
The observatory and Syrian regime-run TV said that regime forces have laid a siege on the town of Saraqeb, which sits on the intersection of two major highways, one linking the Syrian capital of Damascus to the north, and the other connecting the country’s west and east.
Turkish leaders have repeatedly called on Russia to "rein in" Syrian regime forces, a demand to which Moscow responded by expressing concerns over growing militant activity in volatile Idlib.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov reiterated the notion on Thursday, saying that both Russia and Turkey each have "their own sets of concerns". The concentration of militant and rebel groups in Idlib and their "continuing activity" was Russia’s main issue, he said.
Peskov refused to say how many Russians were killed in Idlib but said the Kremlin doesn't rule out a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to discuss the situation in Syria.
Turkey repeated its demand on Thursday, asking Russia to end Syrian regime offensive in Idlib.
"We expect Russia to stop the regime as soon as possible," Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told reporters in the Azerbaijani capital Baku.
Cavusoglu said Turkey and Russia were closely coordinating after the clashes, adding that a delegation from Russia was due to visit Turkey for further talks.
"Our target on the ground in Idlib is not Russia," he said.
"Who carried out the attack there? It is the regime. Who attacked our soldiers? It's the regime ... Who harassed our observation posts? It is the regime."
He said President Erdogan and his Russian counterpart, Putin, could meet "if needed".
"We should continue working together with Russia. If we are to solve problems there, we will solve them together," added Cavusoglu.
Turkey has yet to comment on clashes at Saraqeb, but Cavusoglu said it would not allow "aggression" by Assad's forces.
"Of course there is a limit to our patience. After we had eight martyrs, we retaliated ... if the regime keeps on its aggression, we will not stop there," he said.
Eight humanitarian aid organisations on Wednesday called for an immediate ceasefire in northwestern Syria, where hostilities have displaced half a million people in the past two months.
The violence in the jihadist-ruled region of Idlib has forced 520,000 people out of their homes since the start of December, in one of the biggest upheavals in the nine-year civil war.
The aid groups -- including the Norwegian Refugee Council, Save the Children, Care and the International Rescue Committee -- labelled the situation a "humanitarian catastrophe".
They called for "an immediate cessation of hostilities in addition to immediate access to safety for the millions of civilians currently under fire".
Jan Egeland, head of the Norwegian Refugee Council, warned that the newly arrived were running out of options as to where to go.
"Camps are hosting five times their intended occupancy and rental prices have skyrocketed in towns in the north west," he said.
"We are calling on Turkey to let these terrified families seek safety either across the border or in areas Turkey controls in Syria."
Andrew Morley, the head of World Vision International, said children were sleeping in flooded fields, and some families were even burning their clothes to stay warm.
"The exodus of people is staggering, and tens of thousands more are joining them every day," he said.
The recent of violence has killed around 300 civilians, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor says.
The World Health Organization said on Monday that the violence had forced 53 medical facilities in northwest Syria to close in January and warned of "critical health threats" to fleeing civilians.
Nearly half a million people have been killed and millions displaced in Syria's long-running civil war, which erupted in 2011 in the form of anti-government protests amid Arab Spring uprisings and eventually turned into an armed insurgency.
(Zaman Al Wasl, Agencies)
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