The north Aleppo countryside is now completely encircled by forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad, two and a half years after the area fell out of government control in the wake of a popular uprising. “Nobody has any question about that”, Kerry told reporters at the State Department. Nobody has any question about that. If the Syrian opposition cared about the people in the towns under siege, it would tell its illegal gangs to surrender to the government and stop looting.
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He said Turkey had already allowed in more than 5,000 recently displaced Syrians, but did not address the restrictions along the border. “Ongoing conflict is making access to populations in need increasingly hard”, Haq said.
Turkish TV showed Syrians walking between long rows of large white tents at Bab al-Salam, and Davutoglu said tens of thousands more were on the move.
On a tour in Latin America this week, Erdoğan continued to talk about a no-fly zone and establishing “new cities” inside the Syrian border as the best solution to the refugee issue. The charity runs about 10 camps for displaced Syrians on the frontier.
The European Union has urged Turkey to open its borders to thousands of Syrians fleeing an onslaught by government forces and intense Russian airstrikes.
But government forces have steadily chipped away at rebel-held territory around the city and their advances this week leave the opposition there virtually surrounded.
Saudi Arabia, a key backer of the opposition, meanwhile said it is ready, in principle, to send ground troops to Syria, albeit in the context of the U.S.-led military campaign against the Islamic State group.
Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency said Revolutionary Guard Corps Brigadier-General Mohsen Ghajarian has been killed in Aleppo province, as had six Iranian volunteer militiamen.
“Any ground intervention in Syria, without the consent of the Syrian government, will be considered an aggression that should be resisted by every Syrian citizen”, he said.
Iran has said it has dispatched military advisers to Syria, but denies sending combat troops. But in recent months, only limited numbers of Syrians have been allowed to cross.
Much of Aleppo, including a UNESCO heritage old city, is largely in ruins.
The thousands fleeing Aleppo have spent their first night in temporary shelter at the Turkish border but the crossing remains closed.
The surge of civilians heading to the border started when heavy fighting erupted to the northwest and north of the city of Aleppo, Turkish officials and activists said.
Stoltenberg said Friday that “this creates risks, heightened tensions and is of course a challenge for North Atlantic Treaty Organisation because they’re violations of NATO’s airspace”.
Saturday’s Amsterdam meeting, billed as informal talks, involved Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu.
“If it’s just talk for the sake of talk and they are going to continue bombing, than no one is going to accept that”.
Moscow intervened militarily in Syria’s war at the end of September.
A Turkish charity said the number of Syrians at one border crossing alone had risen to 50,000 since Thursday. The women and children were thrown to the ground.
Advances by the Syrian army and allied militias, including Iranian fighters, threaten to besiege opposition-held areas of the divided city.
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“The fighting has also disrupted major aid and supply routes from the Turkish border”, she added.
