Turkey announces full scale military operation called Operation Spring Shield against Assad regime in northern Syria
Sunday, March 1Turkey launched a full scale military operation against Assad regime forces in northern Syria on Sunday.He said since the operation began on February 28, 1 UAV, 8 helicopters, 103 tanks, 72 guns/howitzers/CNRA, 3 air defence systems and 2,212 regime soldiers have already been eliminated.
"The deconfliction zone in Idlib aimed to prevent atrocities & massacres against 4 million civilians in this area. Our goal has been to prevent ethnic cleansing and war crimes by the Assad regime as well as displacement and more refugees. We have been left alone in this struggle!"Turkey's defence chief and high-level military officials inspected the country's troops on the Syrian border early Sunday.
Stressing that Turkey will retaliate against Assad regime’s attacks, Erdogan said he expected NATO’s concrete and clear solidarity during phone call. Trump, who was speaking at a press conference in White House, told a reporter: "We have many meetings with President Erdogan and we are also talking about exactly what you refer to."
Turkish President Erdogan on Saturday confirmed that Turkish Armed forces destroyed 7 Syrian regime warehouses storing chemical products in northwestern Syria. Turkey's UN envoy Feridun Sinirlioglu asked the UN Security Council to stop the regime's "war crimes" in Syria. The ministry said on Twitter that Turkey "keeps on hitting regime targets" in the Idlib region in retaliation.
The State Department official said the military power of Syrian regime leader Bashar al Assad's forces was very reliant on Russia, and that the authorities in Damascus would not have been able to push the Idlib offensive without support and approval from Moscow. In their phone call, Turkish President Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed implementing agreements in Idlib, the Kremlin said.
Meanwhile, German Chancellor Angela Merkel sharply condemned the regime's assault in Idlib, urging Damascus and its backers to end their offensive. Meanwhile, Turkish President Erdogan and his Russian counterpart Putin in their phone conversation agreed to meet face to face soon, Turkey's communications director said.
According to Altun, Erdogan also said Turkey expects that the regime will be obliged to comply with the Sochi agreement. "This meeting is a clear sign of solidarity with Turkey, a key alley which suffers terror attacks, takes most refugees," he said."We call on Syria and Russia to fully engage in UN-led efforts to find a peaceful solution for the conflict in Syria."Turkey's Defence Minister Akar denied Russia's allegations that Russia was not aware of Turkish soldiers presence at the time of the attack.
Russia's Defence Ministry was cited by the RIA news agency on Friday saying the Turkish troops had been hit by artillery fire from Syrian forces who were trying to repel an offensive by rebel forces. NATO's ruling council will meet Friday for urgent talks on the Syria crisis after at least 33 Turkish soldiers were killed in an air strike blamed on Damascus.
Ankara has called talks under Article 4 a number of times in recent years – twice in 2012 including after one of its jets was shot down by Syrian forces, and once in 2015 after a spate of terrorists attacks in Turkey. The standoff came at a UN Security Council meeting on Syria where the UN’s deputy humanitarian chief Ursula Mueller said almost 950,000 people have fled an advancing Syrian government offensive since it began on December 1.
“With this opportunity, we call on all international community, especially the parties of the Astana Process, to fulfil their responsibilities in order to stop the crimes of the regime committed against the humanity,” he added.
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