Dramatic military escalation tonight in Idlib, the region of north-west Syria where hard clashes have been going on for weeks between government forces supported by Russia and rebel militias supported by Turkey. An air raid that Ankara attributes to Bashar al Assad's army resulted in the death of at least 22 Turkish soldiers. But the budget could prove to be much more serious, because there are many military personnel rushed to Turkish hospitals just across the border. Several of them risk their lives, according to the local prefect. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights sets the budget for at least 34 dead soldiers. It is certainly one of the most serious losses in recent years for the armed forces of Ankara in a single attack.
That the situation is considered serious confirms this by the National Security Council convened urgently for two hours by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu had a telephone conversation in the evening with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg to discuss possible measures to be taken within the framework of the Alliance, to which Ankara may now seek support on the ground. And the US is moving too. Republican Senator Lindsay Graham, influential supporter of President Donald Trump, called for immediate action to ensure a no-fly zone in the area of clashes, while Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar had addressed the implications of an already explosive situation shortly before with his American counterpart Mark Esper. Meanwhile, Ankara replies to the news of the soldiers killed by spreading a huge balance of alleged victims among Assad's forces.
The army claimed to have "neutralized" (ie killed or wounded) in 17 days of clashes at least 1,709 soldiers of Syrian government troops, also destroying 55 tanks, 3 helicopters, 18 armored vehicles, 29 howitzers, 21 military vehicles and several deposits of arms and ammunition of the regime. At stake in this crisis, which has already caused a million displaced persons, there is not only the feared explosion of a new front in the war in Syria, on the eve of the ninth anniversary of its beginning, but also the strategic alliance between Turkey and Russia. Just tonight a new round of talks between the two countries ended in search of an agreement. While the Ankara government insists on respect for the ceasefire and the boundaries established by the Sochi agreement between Erdogan and Vladimir Putin in September 2018, excluding to withdraw its military outposts, Moscow continues to support the Damascus offensive against the rebel "terrorists", including several jihadist groups. The summit that Erdogan wanted to organize next week in Istanbul to put things right with Putin, Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron has jumped, and for now there is no confirmation from the Kremlin even of a bilateral among the leaders. This signals a distance too strong to be bridged in the usual face-to-face between "friends".
Meanwhile, Turkey has decided not to block Syrian refugees who intend to travel to Europe anymore. According to government sources reported by local media, it would be a de facto initiative probably taken as a reaction to the lack of support that Ankara complains to Idlib, where at least 22 of his soldiers were killed tonight in a Syrian air raid and almost a million new refugees they fled to its borders. In practice, the coast guard and the police at land borders were ordered to allow any Syrian refugees to pass unchecked. There is currently no official confirmation from the Ankara authorities. Such an initiative had been repeatedly threatened in the past by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.