You must help refugees — European Union to Ankara

Cavusoglu said the border was open, but at the Oncupinar crossing near the Turkish city of Kilis, which has been largely shut for almost a year, refugees were being shepherded into camps on the Syrian side.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Russian Federation must be held accountable for the civilians it had killed in Syria – saying between them Moscow and Damascus were responsible for the deaths of 400,000 people. The IS now has three crossings with Turkey – the first is west of Jarablus city near the town of Halwaniyey, this crossing is rugged from the Turkish side, but the group uses it to get medical and military supplies.

The number of Syrian refugees fleeing to the Turkish border has spiked over the past few days as fighting has intensified.

Another 10,000 were thought to have been displaced from the Kurdish town of Afrin in the north of Aleppo province, said the UN’s office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) on Saturday.

The Observatory said the capture opened several supply routes to Daraa, which is divided between government and opposition fighters.

A Red Cross spokesman told the French news agency AFP on Saturday that aid delivery access to Aleppo was “difficult”.

The latest stream of refugees trying to escape Syria is occurring as government troops, supported by massive Russian airstrikes, launched attacks in northern Syria aimed at encircling the contested city of Aleppo, the country’s largest.

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Thursday up to 70,000 people were heading to his country, which already hosts about 2.5 million Syrian refugees.

And he said Russian military action had eased the humanitarian situation.

Russian Federation has accused Turkey of “preparations for an armed invasion” of Syria, a claim that Ankara has dismissed.

London-based analyst Ayman Kamel, head of the Middle East and North Africa program at the Euroasia Group, said he expects Assad’s forces to regain control of Aleppo at some point this year, barring further foreign intervention.

The border gate between Syria and Turkey was closed on Friday and no refugee has been admitted, prompting the human rights advocacy group Amnesty International to call on Turkey to allow those who have massed at the border to cross in.

But the gains weren’t without a cost as the Syrian army announced an army general was killed and Iranian revolutionary guards( IRGC ) announced the killing of one of their generals in Syria.

The coordinator told reporters after the Syria peace talks were put on hold on Wednesday that peace can’t be done with the presence of Bashar al-Assad and with the foreign forces meddling.

The Turkish Red Crescent said it was distributing food and water to those waiting on the border with Turkey.

“Some colleagues, yes, they did criticize Russian Federation for continuing this bombing campaign with the help of which the Syrian government has been able to reconquer some ground which was taken from their control by terrorists and other opposition groups”.

Aleppo, once Syria’s thriving commercial centre, has been carved up between government- and rebel-controlled districts since the summer of 2012.

Many civilians carrying backpacks remained stranded at the Bab al-Salam crossing, an AFP photographer reported.

With Aleppo nearly surrounded, there is a risk people living there could be cut off from aid deliveries entirely.

Al-Moallem said the government advances signaled that the five-year-old Syria war is nearing its end, although he said there’s no telling how long “those who conspire” against Syria will continue to do so.