Russia calls on Turkey to show ‘restraint’ in Syria, In Syria, where Ankara has carried out airstrikes and has threatened to launch a military offensive against Kurdish militants, Russia said on Tuesday that it hoped Turkey would exercise “control” and avoid from “any disproportionate use of force.”
Russia calls on Turkey to show ‘restraint’ in Syria
“We hope to convince our Turkish colleagues to refrain from resorting to excessive use of force on Syrian territory” to “avoid the escalation of tensions”, Alexander Lavrentyev, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s special envoy on Syria, told reporters in Astana. Turkey on Sunday launched a series of air raids targeting bases of outlawed Kurdish militants across northern Syria and Iraq. At least 37 people were killed in the strikes, according to a report by Britain-based monitoring group the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
“Russia has for months … done everything possible to prevent any large-scale ground operation,” Lavrentyev said in the Kazakh capital, which is hosting a tripartite meeting between Russia, Turkey and Iran on Syria. The three countries are major players in the war in Syria, which has claimed nearly half a million lives since 2011.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been threatening to launch a new military operation in northern Syria since May. “We will make those who disturb us on our territory pay,” he said on Monday, adding that consultations were ongoing “to decide the level of force that should be used by our ground forces”.
An explosion in central Istanbul last week that left six people dead and 81 injured has prompted Turkey to launch an airstrike under the codename “Operation Claw-Sword,” which it has attributed to the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party. Ankara and its Western allies have designated the PKK as a terrorist organization because it has been waging a bloody insurgency in Turkey for decades. But it has refuted any involvement in the explosion in Istanbul.
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