Top EU officials today reminded Turkey of its global obligations to keep its frontiers open to refugees as thousands fleeing a new government offensive in Syria remained camped out along its southern border.
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An AFP correspondent saw trucks carrying parts for tents on Friday to the refugee camp close to the border gate on the Turkish side which faces the Bab al-Salam crossing on Syrian soil.
At a meeting in Amsterdam between European Union foreign ministers and their Turkish counterpart, European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini urged Turkey to open its borders to “Syrians in need for worldwide protection”, and said the European Union is providing aid to Ankara for that objective.
Tens of thousands of Syrians have fled fighting in Aleppo, as Russian airstrikes intensify… and aid groups say the major city could soon fall under a full government siege.
In northeastern Syria, various groups backed by the U.S. and linked under the banner of the Syrian Democratic Forces were also making progress but Aleppo in the northwest was in danger of falling to Syrian government forces, Air Force Col. Patrick Ryder, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command, said Friday.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitoring group, says about 120 fighters on both sides were killed around the town of Ratyan, north of Aleppo on Friday.
In a televised speech, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Turkey would not leave refugees “without food or shelter” but he would not say if they would be allowed in.
“It is estimated that up to 20,000 people have gathered at the Bab al-Salama border crossing and another 5,000 to 10,000 people have been displaced to Azaz city” nearby, said Linda Tom, a spokeswoman for the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Russia’s intervention has tipped the war President Bashar al-Assad’s way, reversing gains the rebels made past year. But the battle is far from over, according to one rebel commander who told us over the phone that they were promised new shipments of weapons and vowed to keep fighting.
Anti-government protests developed into a civil war that, four years on, has ground to a stalemate, with the Assad government, the Islamic State group, an array of Syrian rebels and Kurdish fighters all holding territory.
Residents of Aleppo city have mostly stayed put for now, because they know that they will be prevented from entering Turkey, said Ameen al-Halabi, the nom de guerre of an activist living in Aleppo.
Ankara said it suspected the aim was to starve the population into submission. “The first priority for them was to be in a secure place and the other (Syrian) side of the border is secure”, the AFAD official said. The group controls large parts of Syria and Iraq. The opposition refused to negotiate while Russian Federation was escalating its bombing and government troops were advancing.
But the French and Russian ambassadors to the United Nations – who have aligned themselves with the Syrian opposition and Syrian government, respectively, expressed some hope that the talks could continue, as rescheduled, on February 25.
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“What is going on (north of Aleppo) is the regime advances with Russian air cover and support by Kurdish forces”.
