Turkey aiding Syrians, but border closed

Yesterday about 15,000 Syrians were waiting on the Syrian side of Turkey’s Oncupinar border crossing and up to 50,000 more were on their way, an official with the Turkish disaster agency AFAD told reporters.

Muallim’s comments came a day after US Secretary of State John Kerry said both Russian and Iranian officials have indicated that they are ready for a ceasefire in Syria, even as a government-led offensive on Aleppo continued to force tens of thousands of people to flee northwards towards Turkey.

Russia, which has a Mediterranean naval base in Syria’s Latakia province, began its aerial campaign in September – purportedly as part of US-led air strikes directed at “Islamic State” (IS) jihadists holding swathes of northern Syria and western Iraq.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu reaffirmed on Saturday that his country would keep its “open border policy” for Syrian refugees.

“Any ground intervention on Syrian territory without government authorisation would amount to an aggression that must be resisted”, he said.

“Many people have left Aleppo”.

The Syrian rebels have been able to hold positions in the Aleppo area before, but the Russian bombing, along with reinforcements sent to Assad by his allies in Iran and the Lebanese Hezbollah militia, appear to have tilted the balance in the battlefield.

Opposition forces and some 350,000 civilians were inside the rebel-held Aleppo city, which was targeted in the government offensive.

“It is highly probable that a large wave of people will now head our way”, Asselborn said, referring to a major migratory route via Turkey, Greece and the Balkans amid Europe’s wrangle over how to control the EU’s external borders.

Pro-government troops backed by Russian warplanes also retook a rebel bastion in Daraa used as to launch attacks on the provincial capital, the monitor said.

Turkey is providing thousands of civilians that are stranded on the Syrian side of the border because of the fighting with food, shelter and blankets.

The opposition has accused the government of acting in bad faith by launching the Aleppo offensive in parallel to the start of the talks.

The region’s governor said, “Our doors are not closed, but at the moment, there is no need to host such people inside our borders”.

Russian and Syrian government forces gained ground north of Aleppo, Syria’s largest city, on Saturday.

Aleppo city, Syria’s former economic powerhouse, has been divided between opposition control in the east and regime control in the west since mid-2012.

Russia’s Defense Ministry on Thursday said it had “reasonable grounds” to suspect Turkey is making intensive preparations for a military invasion of Syria.

Syria’s foreign minister warned Saturday that Saudi or other foreign troops entering his country would “return home in wooden coffins” and asserted that recent military advances put his government “on track” to end the five-year-old civil war.

United Nations envoy Staffan de Mistura hopes to resume the talks by February 25, but it’s unclear if either delegation will return.

“I say this very clearly – if we do not manage to control the situation… our only option will be to cooperate with Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia and Macedonia”, he said after the Amsterdam meeting.

A Turkish fighter jet downed a Russian bomber at the border with Syria on November 24, the first time in more than half a century that a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation member had shot down a Russian plane.

“If people are reduced to eating grass and leaves and killing stray animals in order to survive, that’s something that should tear at the conscience of all civilized people”, he said.