The United States announced its support for Turkey in its response to the Syrian artillery shelling of Turkish sites in Idlib countryside, while the Turkish President stressed that his country will not allow the regime to control more lands in Idlib.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo described the Syrian bombing of Turkish sites in Idlib Governorate as a "dangerous escalation", and said that US officials "fully support the justified acts of self-defense" that Turkey undertook in response to the bombing.
For his part, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that his country will not allow the Syrian regime to control more lands in Idlib.
He added that there is no need to enter into a conflict with Russia at this stage, noting that Ankara has very serious strategic and strategic initiatives with Moscow.
Erdogan accused Moscow, which supports Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, of not fulfilling the agreements in Syria, as well as turning a blind eye to the escalation of the Syrian government and its allied forces in Idlib.
Erdogan also stressed that the attack on Turkish soldiers in Idlib province is a violation of the Idlib agreement, and its results will be reflected in the Syrian regime.
And he considered that the Turkish operations gave a great lesson to the Assad regime, stressing that these operations will not stop, and will continue with the same firmness, as he put it.
In a related context, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoوlu today called on Russia to "stop the insolence of the Assad regime".
Gawishoglu warned that his country "will continue to respond to the Syrian regime if it repeatedly targets Turkish forces in Idlib."
The Russian response
For his part, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that Turkey had not implemented some of its "basic" obligations towards Idlib, calling on Ankara to "strictly adhere" to the agreements reached by the two heads of state in Sochi.
Lavrov pointed out that the Turkish side has not yet implemented two main points within the framework of its commitments to settle the Idlib problems, namely that Turkey has been unable to separate the Syrian armed opposition ready for dialogue with Damascus from "terrorists".
The other point is the non-establishment of a weapons-free zone in Idlib, with a depth of between ten kilometers and twenty kilometers so far.
He added that "the Turkish army advanced to certain locations within the de-escalation zone in Idlib, without warning about these movements, so we were unable to inform the Syrian army of that, and there were strikes (and in return) threats from the Turkish side to take retaliatory measures, all of this is very sad." .
It should be noted that Turkey and Russia have already reached several understandings of the cease-fire in Idlib, the last of which was in January, but they all failed, and the Syrian regime is continuing its operations to control the region.