Russia accused Turkey, yesterday, of failing to fulfill its obligations, according to an agreement to establish a demilitarized zone in the Syrian Idlib province, and of helping militants instead, while the European Union expressed its anger at the "blackmail" of Turkish immigration, and is considering giving Ankara more money.
In detail, the Russian Information Agency quoted a spokesman for the Russian Defense Ministry as saying that the "terrorist" fortifications merged with the Turkish observation sites in Idlib, which led to daily attacks on the Russian Hmeimim air base in Syria.
The Russian spokesman said that Turkey has mobilized forces equal to a mechanical division, in violation of international law.
The Russian accusation came on the eve of a meeting in Moscow between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin.
The two leaders are expected to try to reduce the tension that has pushed Turkey and Russia into a dangerous approach to direct military confrontation.
Russia was not satisfied with accusing Turkey of causing escalation of tension and violating the Sochi Agreement, where a spokesman for the Russian Ministry of Defense, Igor Konashenkov, said that Western countries and the United Nations had never bothered to "gross violations" of the Sochi Memorandum of 2018, on Syrian Idlib.
The spokesman added, in a statement published yesterday, that those violations "were committed by Turkey and the terrorist groups present there, which are represented in increasing shelling of the neighboring Syrian regions and the Russian Hmeimim base, and strengthening the grip of terrorists from the Headquarters for the Liberation of Al-Sham, the Turkistan Islamic Party, and Guardians of Religion over the region, and mixing their sites With Turkish control points instead of taking them out of the region and separating them from the moderate opposition, ”according to Russia Today.
The statement pointed out that «the howling of the West regarding the deterioration of the humanitarian situation in Idlib did not begin until after the Syrian army was forced to launch a military operation, in response to a new attack by the terrorists in early February, and was able to personally implement what was stipulated in the Sochi Agreement, regarding the displacement of terrorist organizations Outside the area, heavy weapons are removed, with a depth of between 15 and 20 kilometers.
The fighting has transformed large parts of northwestern Syria into areas uninhabitable by civilians, who are being clamped down by battles in desperate living conditions, according to a report published by three non-governmental organizations yesterday.
The report, issued by Save the Children, Save the Children and Harvard University, was based on an analysis of satellite imagery of cities and camps in Idlib Governorate, conducted by a program of the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative.
This comes at a time when diplomatic sources said that the EU ambassadors expressed their anger at a meeting they held this week, which they see as an attempt by the Turkish President to "blackmail" the bloc by allowing the migrants to gather on the borders of Greece.
However, some envoys acknowledged that the European Union is in a difficult position, as its member states are unable to agree on how to deal with refugees, and in order to avoid a repeat of the migration crisis in 2015 and 2016, they believe that he may have to pump more money to Turkey in order to continue to prevent the entry of refugees To Europe. "The European Union is the target of an extortion," a diplomat said at the closed meeting held in Brussels on Monday, and Reuters got its details from several diplomatic sources.