Turkish Parliament - Turkish Soldiers Killed In Idlib

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Turkish soldiers killed in Idlib, Ankara holds urgent meeting

(yetkin report Feb 28 2020) (Russia)

https://yetkinreport.com/en/2020/02/28/turkish-soldiers-killed-in-idlib-ankara-holds-urgent-meeting/

Twenty nine Turkish soldiers have been killed in attacks in Syria’s Idlib, officials sources have confirmed, with the government announcing that it has responded to the offence by the Assad regime.

Ankara has decided to retaliate the attacks, said Fahrettin Altun, the communications director of the Turkish Presidency, following a top-level meeting in Ankara late on Feb. 27.

“All known targets of the [Syrian] regime have been hit by our air forces and back-up land forces,” he said.

Rahim Doğan, the governor of the border province of Hatay in southeastern Turkey confirmed that 29 Turkish soldiers were killed and 36 others were wounded.

The injured soldiers were hospitalized in Hatay.

Reuters news agency quoted the Syrian Observatory, a war monitor, as saying that at least 34 Turkish soldiers were killed in air strikes in Idlib.

“We have martyrs, it is true but currently I cannot confirm any number of casualties,” a military source told YetkinReport, responding to a question on the Syrian Observatory claim.

Both the Turkish government and the main opposition held emergency meetings in Ankara following the reports.

President Tayyip Erdoğan called on Defense Minister Hulusi Akar, Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, National Intelligence Service (MİT) head Hakan Fidan and top generals for a meeting. Main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu also held a meeting with party seniors and requested to meet with the defense minister.

Akar talked on the phone with his with his U.S. counterpart, Mark Esper, as Çavuşoğlu spoke with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg.

Reuters claimed that Turkey would stop preventing Syrian refugees from moving to Europe.

Turkish parliament speaker Mustafa Şentop cut short a visit and returned to Ankara. Responding to YetkinReport on whether a mandate on a military act on Syria would be voted on in parliament, Şentop said “currently there is no such a plan.”

CHP leader Kılıçdaroğlu also told YetkinReport that “We do not have such an information. We should act in commonsense. Now we are trying to receive sound information.”

Şentop had held a meeting with Erdoğan at the presidential complex on Feb. 26, one day before the president met with both his ruling Justice and Development Party (Ak Party) lawmakers and Devlet Bahçeli, the leader of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and his election ally.

As the recent attacks took place, a Russian foreign ministry team was in Ankara in talks with their Turkish counterparts on the Syria issue. A simultaneous announcement by Moscow, Syrian regime’s biggest supporter, that a scheduled March 5 meeting between Erdoğan and Russian President Vladimir Putin would not be held raised tension between the two capitals.

Russian state television also said Turkish forces and Turkey-supporter group, which it deemed “terrorists,” fired rockets at Russian and Syrian fighter jets in Syria and “counter measures were taken.”

Turkish officials announced that no Russian jets were targeted.

This followed reports that Turkey-backed forces took over Saraqib, a northern Syrian town on the key M5 highway that links Damascus to Aleppo and fierce clashes erupted there.

The Turkish government has been awaiting more support from the U.S. and NATO on the Syrian issue. Deploying Patriot missile systems in Turkey or utilizing the U.S. Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean could be forms of such support. Currently, a U.S. cruiser with missile firing capacity is in Black Sea. Ankara is angry, but raising tensions with Russia to a further level is also a source of concern.

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Turkish Parliament - Turkish Soldiers Killed In Idlib (Turkey)

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Turkish losses rise in dangerous escalation over Syria's Idlib

(al-monitor news Feb 27 2020) (Turkey)

https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2020/02/erdogan-bluster-war-russia-backed-syrian-forces.html

(excerpt 1)

Speaking after an emergency national security meeting covened by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, presidential communications director Fahrettin Altun pledged that Turkey's soldiers would be avenged. "Our operations in the Syrian theater will continue until the blood soaked hands taking aim at our flag are broken. The decision to retaliate with far greater force against the illegitimate [Syrian] regime that pointed its guns at our soldiers has been made."

(excerpt 2)

Aaron Stein, director of the Middle East program at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia, said, “Ankara is in a bind. They have to do something, but doing something means tangling with a more powerful adversary, Russia.” Aaron told Al-Monitor, “They must be thinking they can try and calibrate a response to try and keep Russia out of it. They also must be thinking this many not be possible, so we are going to need help from our allies.” There are few signs though that either the United States or Turkey’s other NATO allies will intervene in a conflict they view as being largely of Turkey’s own making.

Stein continued, “Russia can tailor an escalation in a number of ways. It can make life miserable for Turkish forces in Syria, either by bombing supply lines or by extending the fight into areas Ankara occupies and administers along the border.”

Erdogan showed no signs of backing down from a full-blown war with Russian-backed Syrian forces earlier today, claiming the situation in Syria’s northwest province of Idlib “has turned in our favor.” Addressing members of his Justice and Development Party, Erdogan vowed to press on, saying, “We have three martyrs, may they rest in peace. But the regime forces’ losses are far greater.”

(excerpt 3)

“The fundamental problem is that when a diffuse insurgent group clumps together, it makes them easier to kill,” noted Stein. Russian state television claimed Turkish military advisers were using shoulder-fired missiles to try to shoot down Russian and Syrian military aircraft above Idlib. “Russia will switch now to higher altitude bombing. [Saraqeb] may be in rebel hands but I’d guess that will invite more punishment. And that punishment will prevent the return of IDPs, the main issue Ankara has with the offensive,” Stein told Al-Monitor. “This is pyrrhic, if you ask me.”

The conventional wisdom thus far is that Erdogan is playing a game of brinksmanship with Russia.

His main concern is that further regime advances would lead to over 900,000 civilians, half of them children, pushed up against the Turkish border to cross into Turkey. Erdogan’s popularity has taken a hit as resentment against nearly four million Syrian refugees already inside Turkey grows.

(excerpt 4)

The Donald Trump administration faces significant barriers in responding to the situation in Idlib, US officials say. Speaking at a closed-door event in Washington on Thursday, Richard Outzen, a senior State Department advisor on Syria, said that the US lacks the legal authority to ground Assad’s air force or to shoot down Syrian warplanes, attendees told Al-Monitor.

Meanwhile, the US administration is considering sending a high-level delegation to Turkey next week to look at the situation on the border that could include US Ambassador to the United Nations Kelly Craft and State Department envoy for Syria engagement Jim Jeffrey, two sources said. On Thursday at the off-the-record event at the Turkish Heritage Organization, a pro-government think tank, Outzen called for the international community to support Turkey and said the US would provide resources for humanitarian assistance, the attendees said.

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Turkish Parliament - Putin and Erdogan Brinkmanship

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Putin’s and Erdoğan’s brinkmanship may fail Syria talks

(yetkinreport Feb 26 2020)

https://yetkinreport.com/en/2020/02/26/putins-and-erdogans-brinkmanship-may-fail-syria-talks/

Only four days ago, on Feb. 22, President Tayyip Erdoğan of Turkey announced he would host the second Idlib meeting on March 5 in Istanbul with the participation of Russian President Vladimir Putin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron. On Feb. 25, before leaving for Azerbaijan, Erdoğan said that “Despite the lack of an agreement between Macron, Merkel, and Putin about the meeting, in the worst case, President Putin and I might meet on March 5 to discuss the latest developments.”

That was a hint implying that the four-way meeting scheduled for March 5 could fail, or at least be postponed. Actually, a night before, German Ambassador to Ankara Martin Erdmann, said while answering journalists’ questions that he had not yet been officially instructed about the Istanbul meeting. Moreover, later on Feb. 22, the Russian ambassador to Ankara, Aleksey Erkohov told journalists right after he got the news that the Erdoğan-Putin phone conversation was over that everything was on the table; a four-way, three-way or bilateral meeting.

Only an hour or so after Erdoğan’s statement regarding the discrepancies between Merkel, Macron and Putin, and putting forth the possibility of a bilateral meeting with the Russian leader, Kremlin spokesperson Dimitry Peskov said Moscow had no plans to discuss Idlib issue in Istanbul with Germany and France. He also said that Putin was not interested in a bilateral meeting with Erdoğan but rather a three-party meeting with the participation of the Iranian leader Hassan Rouhani, their Astana partner. (By the way, Iran is struggling with the coronavirus epidemic on one hand and the new U.S. sanctions on the other.)

The escalating tension was echoed a few hours later by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. He said the Syrian regime’s attacks “only heightens the risk of conflict with our NATO ally Turkey,” adding that there would be no military victory for the Bashar Al-Assad regime supported by Russia and Iran.

Meanwhile, in an air raid on Idlib, 21 civilians were reportedly killed; followed by a Russian statement that their jets were not involved in the attack, which means that it was the Syria air force jets that attacked their own city and citizens.

Erdoğan seems to be playing the same brinkmanship policy that he played against the Americans in the Syrian theater (in Jarablus, Afrin and recently Tel Abyad) now with the Russians. Erdoğan might be a master of brinkmanship but so is Putin. And Erdoğan’s wins over American positions were partly thanks to the Russian support to Turkish military by stopping Syria jets and artillery from attacking Turkish troops advancing in Syrian territory. This is in a way a power struggle between the U.S. and Russia, as well.

Ankara suspects that Moscow wants to help Damascus to take Idlib back and try avoiding the U.N. talks in Geneva, where the Syria opposition has a place. And if Geneva talks lead to an election in which all Syria citizens, including those who live outside of the country now would be able to cast votes, that will be bad news for Assad, and also for Putin and Rouhani.

It is not logical and rational to think that Russia will like to dump all strategic gains from Turkey and Turkey would like to take the risk of having a hostile Russia. But the brinkmanship is a dangerous game to play and as John Foster Dulles, the first person ever used the term said, “the ability to get to the verge without getting into the war is the necessary art.”

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Turkish Parliament - Syria Retakes Key Town Brinkmanship

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Activists: Syrian Opposition Fighters Retake Key Town

(AP Feb 27 2020)

https://www.voanews.com/middle-east/activists-syrian-opposition-fighters-retake-key-town

BEIRUT - Turkey-backed Syrian opposition fighters Thursday retook a strategic northwestern town in Syria, opposition activists said, and cut off the key highway linking the capital, Damascus, with the northern city of Aleppo, days after the government reopened it for the first time since 2012.

Despite the loss of Saraqeb, government forces made major gains to the south, taking control of almost the entire southern part of Idlib province with the capture of more than 20 villages Thursday, state media and opposition activists said.

The retaking of Saraqeb, which sits on the M5 highway, is a setback for Syrian President Bashar Assad's forces who have scored major gains in a weekslong Russian-backed campaign in the last rebel stronghold in Idlib province. Officials had hailed the reopening of the motorway as a major victory in the nine-year conflict.

The government's military campaign to recapture Idlib, the last opposition-held stronghold in the country, has triggered a humanitarian catastrophe and the war's largest single wave of displacement. According to the U.N., almost 950,000 civilians have been displaced since early December, and more than 300 have been killed. Most have fled farther north to safer areas near the Turkish border, overwhelming camps already crowded with refugees in cold winter weather.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitoring group, said the opposition fighters seized the town of Saraqeb after intense bombardment by Turkish troops. Turkey and Russia support opposite sides in Syria's brutal civil war, with Ankara backing the opposition and Moscow backing Assad.

From inside Saraqeb, activist Taher al-Omar said the town is now under opposition control. He posted a video with a fighter saying the government forces “ran away like rats.”

The Observatory said more than 60 fighters were killed on both sides since Wednesday, adding that later on Thursday, government forces launched a counteroffensive under the cover of Russian airstrikes to try retake the town.

Syrian state media reported intense clashes near Saraqeb, saying insurgents sent suicide car bombs and that Turkish forces bombarded the area. It said a small group of insurgents reached the highway to score a “propaganda stunt,” adding that “Syrian troops are dealing with them.”

State TV later Thursday confirmed that insurgents have cut the highway adding the fighting is ongoing in the area.

In southern parts of Idlib, government forces captured more than 20 villages since late Wednesday bringing southern parts of the rebel stronghold under government control, the Observatory said. It added that Syrian troops have now besieged another Turkish observation post in an area known as Sheer Maghar, it added.

The government controlled Syrian Central Military Media said government forces marching from northern parts of Hama province met Thursday with forces moving from southern Idlib bringing wide areas under Syrian army control.

If government forces now turn their march north they can eventually reach another major highway known as the M4 that links Syria's coastal region with the country's west. Assad has vowed to regain control of all parts of Syria.

Backed by Russian air power, Assad's forces have over the past few days captured dozens of villages, including major rebel strongholds, in the last opposition-held area.

The campaign also seized the last segments of the south-north M5 highway. When the government forces first took Saraqeb earlier this month, it marked their capture of the last major rebel-held town along the highway.

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>>8270479

Agree, does not appear NATO will backup Turkey

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Turkish Parliament - US Leans On Turkey

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Intel: US leans on Turkey despite tensions

(al monitor Feb 25 2020) (Turkey)

https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2020/02/intel-us-lean-turkey-tension-trump-nato-f35-russia-s400.html

( article pic: Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar and the supreme allied commander Europe, US Air Force Gen. Tod Wolters June 26, 2019)

The top US military commander in Europe told Congress today that Turkey remains a key ally despite the Donald Trump administration’s decision to boot the NATO partner from the F-35 program after it took delivery of the Russian S-400 air defense system last summer.

The exchange: Pressed by Florida Republican Sen. Rick Scott in a posture hearing Tuesday, the dual-hatted NATO supreme allied commander and US European Command chief Gen. Tod Wolters said that “Turkey remains a very reliable ally” more than seven months after receiving its first S-400 batteries.

Impacts: But as the Pentagon winds down Turkey’s participation in the F-35 program over long-held fears that the Russian system could wind up reducing the American fighter’s ability to evade detection in combat, Ankara will not be directly participating in a massive military exercise in Europe.

“They are on the periphery,” Wolters said, confirming that Turkey would hold observer status for the drill that will include nearly 40,000 allied troops in a defensive scenario on the Suwalki Gap between Poland and Lithuania.

Meanwhile, in Syria: Ongoing fighting in Idlib province, where Turkish-backed fighters are clashing with troops loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, has driven the tepid US-Turkish alliance closer together. “As President Trump said on Tuesday [Feb. 18], we are working together with Turkey on seeing what we can do,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said today, declining to provide specifics. Turkey has asked the United States for Patriot missile batteries to defend its border, Al-Monitor has confirmed.

What’s next: Wheels up for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is set to huddle next week with his French, German and Russian counterparts to talk over the brewing chaos in Idlib.

as Turkey is involved in actions in Libya, link to recent article:

UN: Rival Libyan politicians meet for peace talks in Geneva

(AP Feb 26 2020)

https://news.yahoo.com/un-rival-libyan-politicians-meet-112221299.html

>>8270413

Interesting how each different foreign news oulet provides different details of events.

In the US seems most the media is how many twitter posts can fit into a story with the 4am talking points.