'Turkey will not allow more carnage in Idlib, Syria'

By Busra Nur Bilgic Cakmak

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey will not allow more human carnage in Idlib, Syria, said the Turkish foreign minister on Saturday.

"Last week our military was also attacked. We suffered losses. We retaliated and will continue to do so," said Mevlut Cavusoglu in a side event called Turkish Foreign Policy Options at the Munich Security Conference.

"We expect our allies and partners to work with us and exert maximum pressure on the regime and its backers to stop their aggression," added Cavusoglu.

On Monday, five Turkish troops were martyred and five injured in an attack by Assad regime forces in Idlib, following a similar attack last week martyring seven soldiers and a civilian contractor working with the Turkish military.

The Turkish troops are in Idlib -- nominally a cease-fire zone, under a deal between Turkey and Russia -- as part of an anti-terror and peace mission.

Turkey has since retaliated for both attacks, hitting scores of targets and neutralizing over 200 Assad regime troops.

In September 2018, Turkey and Russia agreed to turn Idlib into a de-escalation zone in which acts of aggression are expressly prohibited.

But more than 1,800 civilians have been killed in attacks by regime and Russian forces since then, flouting both the 2018 cease-fire and a new one that started on Jan. 12.

More than 1.7 million Syrians have moved near the Turkish border due to intense attacks over the past year.

Turkey remains the country with the most refugees in the world, hosting more than 3.7 million migrants since the start of the Syrian civil war in 2011.