President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said Saturday that Ankara demands Moscow to stay out of its fight against Assad regime forces in northwestern Syria's Idlib, Eurasia Diary reports citing Daily Sabah.
"I asked Putin for Russia to leave Turkish forces alone to fight the regime, we can't seem to understand Russia's intentions there," Erdoğan told a group of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) deputies at a meeting in Istanbul.
Erdoğan said that he conveyed this demand to his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in their recent phone call, which took place after Thursday's air strike by regime forces that left 36 Turkish soldiers dead.
- They aim to put Turkey into a stalemate in Idlib, we have broken the siege in south of Idlib completely
- Syria crisis is never ‘adventure’ or ‘effort to expand its borders’ for Turkey; the regime is threatening our territorial integrity
- Turkey has been forced to act against the regime at this scale; we will continue our operations
- Turkish forces destroyed regime's 7 chemical weapons depots, 94 tanks, 37 howitzers, 27 military vehicles as of last night
- Turkey will not close its doors for refugees going to Europe; 18,000 migrants crossed to EU and this number will rise to 30,000 today
- Approximately 4 million people are moving toward the Turkish border to flee the regime attacks. 1.5 million are currently at the border