UPDATE - Turkey decries deadly Russian strikes in Syria’s Idlib

ADDS WHITE HOUSE CONDEMNATIOn

By Fatih Tuna

ANKARA (AA) – Turkey on Thursday strongly condemned a series of airstrikes carried out one day earlier by Russian warplanes in residential parts of Syria's northern Idlib province that left at least 35 civilians dead.

"We strongly condemn yesterday’s airstrikes on residential parts of Idlib, including one that struck a school in the village of Hass that killed over 20 civilians, including schoolchildren," the Turkish Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Wednesday’s deadly airstrikes, the ministry asserted, showed "the urgent need to reach a cessation-of-hostilities agreement" in Syria.

The ministry went on to urge the international community "to ensure that the perpetrators [of the airstrikes] are held accountable for their deeds and that attacks on civilians are brought to a halt".

In Washington, the U.S. said that while it couldn't definitively say which country carried out the deadly sortie "this is just the latest example of the outrageous conduct of either the Assad regime or the Russian government.

"There is no justification for bombing a school," White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters. "Even if it was the Assad regime that carried it out, the Assad regime is only in a position to carry out those kinds of attacks because they are supported by the Russian government and the failure of the Russian government to use their influence with the Assad regime to bring that kind of violence to an end is something that we have been deeply, deeply disappointed by."

On Wednesday, Omar Ulwan, a pro-opposition civil defense official in Idlib, told Anadolu Agency that Russian warplanes had targeted a school and a marketplace in the village of Hass south of Idlib city.

According to local field hospital sources, a total of 35 people were killed -- and dozens of others injured -- by 12 airstrikes carried out by Russian military aircraft.

The death toll, the same sources said, included 22 children and six school teachers.

Hundreds of civilians have reportedly been killed or injured in Russian and Syrian airstrikes since Sept. 19, when the Assad regime announced the end of a week-long ceasefire.

Syria has been locked in a vicious civil war since early 2011, when the regime cracked down on pro-democracy protests -- which erupted as part of the "Arab Spring" uprisings -- with unexpected ferocity.

Since then, more than a quarter of a million people have been killed and more than 10 million displaced across the war-torn country, according to UN figures.

* Anadolu Agency Washington Correspondent Michael Hernandez contributed to this report