Turkey’s Erdogan hopes to broker Idlib truce in Moscow

Turkey’s president said he hopes to broker a cease-fire later this week in Moscow when he meets with his Russian counterpart, after growing alarm over direct clashes between Turkish troops and Russian-backed Syrian forces in northern Syria.

The fighting in Syria’s Idlib province, the last rebel-held area in the country, has sparked one of the war’s worst humanitarian crises, with almost one million Syrian civilians fleeing toward the sealed Turkish border.

Turkey has sent thousands of troops into the area supporting the opposition fighters holed up there, but hasn’t been able to stop the government offensive.

Russia tipped the nine-year civil war in Syrian President Bashar Assad’s favor after it joined the conflict on his side in September 2015. Both countries have been closely coordinating over the situation in Syria in recent years, even as Turkey continues to heavily back the Syrian opposition.

Fighting worsened over the past days after Syrian shelling killed more than 30 Turkish soldiers in Idlib. Turkey responded with drone attacks and shelling that killed more than 90 Syrian troops and allied gunmen. The Turkish air force also shot down two Syrian warplanes after Syria’s air defenses shot down one of its drones.

Turkey lost 54 soldiers in Syria in February, including 33 killed Thursday in a single airstrike.

Outraged, Erdogan announced his country’s western borders were open Saturday for thousands of migrants and refugees to cross into Europe, as he sought to pressure the EU to help Turkey handle the fallout from the war in Syria.

In Moscow, Kremlin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will meet Thursday with President Vladimir Putin in the Russian capital.

Erdogan said he hoped to broker a cease-fire in Idlib when he sees Putin to “prevent further bloodshed.” He did not elaborate.

Syria’s Foreign Ministry vowed that Damascus will “firmly repel Turkey’s flagrant aggression” against the country and stop Ankara’s intervention in Syria.

Early on Monday, Syrian government forces and their allies retook the key northwestern town of Saraqeb days after losing it to rebel forces, pro-government media and an opposition war monitor said.

As a reporter for Syrian state TV was speaking live from inside Saraqeb, a shell exploded behind him causing a mushroom cloud of dust with the journalist and his crew rushing for cover in a nearby building.

Syria’s Foreign Ministry said in its statement that the international community should prevent Erdogan from taking advantage of the “suffering of Syrians in order to blackmail European countries by releasing waves of migrants toward Europe.”

The new gains at Saraqeb on the ground also bring the last segment of a highway that links the capital Damascus with the major northern city of Aleppo under government control. The highway was reopened late last month before insurgents seized Saraqeb, which sits on the highway, last week.

On the southern edge of Idlib, intense fighting was reported near the village of Kafranbel that Syrian troops captured last week, opposition activists said.

The government-controlled Syrian Central Military Media said Syrian troops and their allies regained control of Saraqeb after fighting with al-Qaida-linked militants.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said troops captured the town under the cover of airstrikes by the Russian air force.

Syrian government forces have captured dozens of villages since they launched a Russian-backed offensive in Idlib in early December leaving hundreds of civilians dead and displacing more than 950,000 triggering a humanitarian crisis.