On Saturday morning, Turkey’s Oncupinar border crossing – which faces Bab al-Salama on Syrian soil – remained closed, an AFP correspondent said, as Turkish authorities said they were working to free up space within existing camps to accommodate the new arrivals. “So far, they have hit more than three local markets and caused a lot of civilian casualties”, he told The Guardian Friday. European Union nations have committed 3 billion euros ($3.3 billion) to Turkey to help refugees, part of incentives aimed at persuading Turkey to do more to stop thousands of migrants from leaving for Greece.
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Commenting on Mistura’s briefing, French Ambassador to the UN Francoise Delattre told reporters that the UN envoy “confirms what we already knew – the Syrian regime and its allies have made no concessions”. It is Syria’s largest city and business centre.
Syria’s Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem meanwhile said government forces were “on track to end the conflict” following the recent gains around Aleppo.
The Syrian government, backed by Russian military support, are carrying out a major offensive that has sparked a severe humanitarian crisis in rebel-held areas of Aleppo.
That is unlikely to happen any time soon.
Advances by the Syrian army and allied militias, including Iranian fighters, are threatening to cut off rebel-held zones of the city, still home to around 350,000 people, while more than a million live in government-controlled areas. Neither Syria nor Russian Federation is a signatory to the cluster bombs “convention”: http://www.un.org/disarmament/content/slideshow/ccm/ banning the weapons.
However, he was forced to adjourn by mid-week, after the opposition said there was no point negotiating while pro-government troops backed by Russian airstrikes escalated attacks and gained ground north of Aleppo, once Syria’s largest city.
Talks are now under way about a ceasefire and humanitarian access for civilians in the five-year-old Syrian civil war and it will be clear within days whether that is possible, US Secretary of State John Kerry said yesterday.
The country already hosts more than 2.7 million refugees from the bloody conflict.
“We face the very real prospect that there will be another huge influx of refugees [into Europe] … as a result of the indiscriminate bombing around Aleppo”, Luxembourg’s Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn said as he went into the meeting.
Turkey’s Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Thursday that some 10,000 Syrians who fled the Aleppo area were waiting at the Turkish border, seeking refuge.
In keeping with that policy, a Turkish aid agency erected tents and distributed food on the Syrian side of the border, said Majid Najar, a Syrian activist helping with the aid effort in Bab al-Salameh.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on Friday that Russian Federation must account for the people it has killed in Syria, arguing that Russian Federation and Assad regime were together responsible for 400,000 deaths there.
Syrian refugees are streaming out of Aleppo in a march toward Turkey, fleeing the intense fighting.
Jens Stoltenberg says that increased Russian air force activity in Syria also is leading to increased violations of Turkish airspace.
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The semi-official Fars news agency quoted Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari, commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, as saying he didn’t think the Saudis were “brave enough” to send ground troops.
