Russian air support for the Syrian government offensive has transformed the balance of power in the 5-year-old war in the past three weeks.
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Northern Syria has been the scene of intense fighting recently, displacing tens of thousands of people as Syrian regime forces, backed by Russian jets, pursue a major offensive on the key city of Aleppo, and Turkey shells Kurdish People’s Protection Units, or YPG, near Azaz.
In Damascus, UN envoy Staffan de Mistura said aid convoys will be sent on Wednesday to test the resolve of warring parties to allow in humanitarian supplies.
And the United States is continuing to channel support to its own allies in Syria.
Syrian government troops and allied militias, backed by heavy Russian bombardment, are closing in on the area, hoping to seal off parts of Aleppo held by rebels since 2012 in what would be a major blow to the opposition. A cessation of hostilities and the ceasefire itself, it’s something which should be done all together through cooperation.
Turkey’s attacks on Kurdish forces in Syria puts the United States, which formally backs the YPG, in a hard position.
UNITED NATIONS The United Nations Security Council expressed concern during a closed-door meeting on Tuesday over Turkish shelling of Kurdish YPG militia targets in Syria and called on Turkey to abide by worldwide law, the council president Venezuela said.
“Without a ground operation it is impossible to stop the fighting in Syria”, the official added.
But he ruled out the possibility of Turkey undertaking unilateral action or the prospect of a joint Saudi-Turkish venture without broader consensus in the anti-IS coalition.
“There is a tremendous disappointment on the part of the Turkish authorities, as well as Turkish public opinion”, Kilic said.
An escalation is possible if Turkey launches the ground operation, said independent military analyst Alexander Golts: “Russia will face the alternative to evacuate immediately and lose face or launch a ground operation”.
Both countries are ready to start a regional and global war because of defeats suffered by rebels they support, said Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, addressing supporters in Beirut via satellite link from his hideout elsewhere in the city.
Syrian government forces and a predominantly Kurdish coalition of fighters have advanced and captured more areas from an array of insurgent groups in the country’s north. They are taking advantage of the chaos to advance and try to link the two enclaves they control to the east and west. They have advanced eastward from Afrin and from the west to the edge of Azaz, triggering alarm in Ankara, which responded with artillery on Kurdish positions.
In one attack in Azaz in northern Aleppo province, 13 people were killed and dozens injured Monday when a hospital for women and children was struck, according to the United Nations human rights office.
Erdogan said ignoring the link between the Syrian Kurdish PYD and the PKK, which has fought a three-decade insurgency for greater Kurdish autonomy in Turkey’s mainly Kurdish southeast, was a “hostile act”.
Russian Federation has denied allegations that they were responsible for the missiles that hit a hospital.
Russian Federation dismissed claims yesterday that its warplanes had bombed a Syrian hospital in Idlib province supported by Doctors Without Borders (MSF) and killed at least nine people.
“Those who make up such statements are not capable of backing them up with proof”, the BBC reports Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying.
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“They did not operate with the Syrian government permission”, he added. The Turkish operations give Moscow an excuse to continue its bombing campaign at precisely the time the U.S.is trying to bring pressure on it to stop, creating another division between Washington and its North Atlantic Treaty Organisation ally.
