Russia Blames Turkey For Its 33 Troops Killed Embedded With “Terrorists”; Turkey Vows To Escalate
“We have fought Russia 16 times in the past, and we will fight it again,” Turkish adviser to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Mesut Hakki Casin, has warned after Thursday’s dramatic escalation involving the deaths of some 33 Turkish soldiers in Idlib via airstrike, in the single deadliest day for Turkey in Syria throughout the entirety of the war.
NATO held an emergency meeting at Turkey’s request, while the Trump administration has vaguely responded that the US “stands with Turkey”, but it increasingly looks like Ankara will go it alone in terms of its adventurism inside Idlib, after NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg merely offered “condolences” and expressed “solidarity” with Turkey. Regardless, Turkey has vowed escalation, reports The Washington Post:
Turkey vowed Friday to escalate military actions in Syria’s Idlib province after 33 of its soldiers were killed in an airstrike it blamed on Syria, as the risk of a major military confrontation between Russia and Turkey in the region increased sharply.
Widespread early reports said it was a Russian strike, but in a sign that Ankara doesn’t want to confront the more formidable Russian Air Force, it has blamed Syrian forces while restricting social media access to its own citizens, likely in an effort to allay domestic political pressure on Erdogon to “do something” to confront Russia.
Erdogan has even reportedly told President Trump that Syrian “regime forces” were behind that attack and that Turkey has responded. But Turkey’s defense minister did have this to say of Russia’s role: “This attack occurred even though the locations of our troops had been coordinated with Russian officials in the field,” yet stopping short of saying Russian jets were behind it.
Moscow for its part has remained unflinching after it appears to have set a clear ‘red line’ in Turkey:
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