Turkish Prime Minister Says Russia Committing ‘Crimes’ in Syria

Sleboda says the Riyadh-assembled High Negotiations Committee (HNC), the so-called opposition coalition, has declared directly that the Syrian army advances supported by the Russian airstrikes have caused them to pull out of the Syria peace talks.

Just days after the peace talks regarding the Syrian civil war started, the United Nations announced its suspension and delaying it for a later date.

“During this pause in the talks, the world needs to push in one direction – toward stopping the oppression and suffering of the Syrian people and ending, not prolonging, this conflict”, he added.

“I had a conversation this morning with Foreign Minister Lavrov”.

The Syrian military and allied fighters, backed by Russian airstrikes, on Friday pushed ahead with a major offensive in the north of the country, capturing another village and moving a step closer to encircling contested Aleppo, Syria’s largest city.

In Geneva on Wednesday, UN envoy Staffan de Mistura suspended attempts to begin a dialogue between Bashar al-Assad’s regime and the Syrian opposition.

When asked about the Russian claim at a media briefing, John Kirby, a spokesman for the U.S. State Department, said: “I’m not certainly not going to get up here and speak to what the Turks are doing on that border on any given day”. “We discussed, and we agreed, that we need to discuss how to implement the ceasefire”.

“Six volunteer Basij members were martyred (killed) in Syria while fighting against takfiris near Aleppo while defending Shi’ite holy shrines”, Tasnim added.

The conquest of the town of Atman opens up several supply routes to Daraa, which is divided between government and opposition fighters, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported.

In London for the donors’ conference, Kerry said he had asked Moscow to stop bombing opposition forces.

But there was a stark warning by Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu of a fresh “humanitarian disaster” after regime forces – supported by Russian air strikes – cut off the northern city of Aleppo.

Some 4.6 million Syrians have fled to nearby countries – Jordan Lebanon Turkey Iraq and Egypt – while hundreds of thousands have journeyed to Europe.

The tally falls short of the $9 billion the United Nations and regional countries said was needed for 2016 alone, but it was a significant improvement on half-hearted previous fundraising efforts.

Turkey routinely move troops around at the border, however, usually accompanying threats to the Syrian Kurds, and it doesn’t necessarily mean that this is anything more than another round of posturing.

Conference co-host Britain has pledged 1.2 billion pounds ($1.75 billion) in new aid between now and 2020, and the USA committed $900 million to bring total US humanitarian spending on the five-year war to $5.1 billion.