Turkey will no longer stop Syrian refugees from reaching Europe, a senior Turkish official said, as Ankara responded on Friday to the killing of 33 Turkish soldiers in an air strike by Syrian government forces in Syria’s northwestern Idlib region.
Turkey says will not stop Syrian refugees reaching Europe after troops killed
STEPANAKERT, FEBRUARY 28, ARTSAKHPRESS: President Tayyip Erdogan chaired an emergency meeting on the attack in Ankara overnight, while Defence Minister Hulusi Akar and Turkish force commanders directed operations in Syria at the Turkish border, Reuters reports, citing state-owned Anadolu news agency. Turkey has sent thousands of troops and heavy military hardware into Syria and Erdogan has warned that Turkey would launch a full-scale offensive to repel Syrian forces unless they pulled back from Turkish observation posts in the region.
The killing of 33 Turkish soldiers and wounding of 32, announced by the governor in Turkey’s Hatay province bordering Syria, raised the Turkish military death toll in the region to 54 this month. Turkey’s communications director, Fahrettin Altun, said that in retaliation, “all known” Syrian government targets were being fired on by Turkish air and land support units.
