BALADI NEWS
An assault on rebel-held northwest Syria by regime forces has pushed some 700,000 people to flee toward the Turkish border and raised the specter of an international crisis, U.S. Special Envoy for Syria James Jeffrey said on Thursday.
Speaking at an online news briefing, Jeffrey said that in the last three days Syrian regime and Russian warplanes had hit Idlib with 200 airstrikes “mainly against civilians”, and that several Turkish observation posts had been “cut off” by the regime advance.
There are “massive movements of troops pushing back hundreds of square kilometers and setting - I think now - 700,000 people who are already internally displaced on the move once again towards the Turkish border, which will then create an international crisis,” said Jeffrey.
Backed by Russian airpower, regime forces have advanced on Idlib at a rapid clip since last week, taking back dozens of towns and upending a region where millions have taken refuge since the start of Syria’s nearly nine-year war.
The campaign has ratcheted up tensions between Moscow and Ankara. Turkey fears a fresh wave of migrants piling across its border and has a dozen observation posts in Idlib, part of a de-escalation agreement it says Russia is now violating. Turkey already hosts more than 3.5 million Syrian refugees.
Source: Reuters.