*ISTANBUL: *Turkey and Russia were engaged in a fresh war of words onWednesday after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatened an “imminent”operation in Syria to end the regime’s brutal assault on the last rebelenclave.
It came as Syrian aid workers issued an urgent call for a ceasefire andinternational help for nearly a million people fleeing the regime onslaughtin the country’s northwestern Idlib province – the biggest wave ofdisplaced civilians in the nine-year conflict.
The Syrian NGO Alliance said displaced people are “escaping in search ofsafety only to die from extreme weather conditions and lack of availableresources”.
“We are facing one of the worst protection crises and are dealing with amass movement of IDPs (internally displaced persons) who have nowhere togo,” it told a press conference in Istanbul.
The group said a total of $336 million was needed for basic food, water,shelter. Education resources were also needed for 280 million displacedschool-aged children.
Turkey, which backs some rebel groups in Idlib, has been pushing for arenewed ceasefire in talks with Russia, eager to prevent another flood ofrefugees into its territory adding to the 3.7 million Syrian refugees italready hosts.
But Erdogan said talks with Moscow over the past fortnight had so farfailed to achieve “the desired result” and warned that Turkey would launchan offensive into Syria unless Damascus pulled its forces back by the endof the month.
“An operation in Idlib is imminent… We are counting down, we are making ourfinal warnings,” Erdogan said in a televised speech.
He called for Syrian forces to retreat behind Turkey’s military posts inIdlib, which were set up under a 2018 deal with Russia designed to hold offa regime advance.
The Kremlin quickly responded to Erdogan’s threat, warning that anyoperation against Syrian forces would be “the worst scenario”.
Earlier this week the United Nations said the displaced were mainly womenand children and warned that babies were dying of cold because aid campsare full.
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The Syrian NGOs called for the warring parties to allow safe access forhumanitarian groups and for a “complete ceasefire and end to human rightsviolations”.
The regime offensive has killed more than 400 civilians since it began inDecember, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
“The violence in northwest Syria is indiscriminate. Health facilities,schools, residential areas, mosques and markets have been hit,” the UN headof humanitarian affairs and emergency relief, Mark Lowcock, said earlierthis week.
Moscow has repeatedly vetoed Security Council resolutions.
The head of the World Health Organisation said Tuesday that out of nearly550 such facilities in northwest Syria, only about half were operational.
“We repeat: health facilities and health workers are not a legitimatetarget,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told journalists in Geneva.
Syrian troops have reconquered swathes of Idlib and retaken the key M5highway connecting the country’s four largest cities as well as the entiresurroundings of Aleppo city for the first time since 2012.
According to the Observatory, government forces made new gains in westernAleppo province on Tuesday and were pushing towards the Sheikh Barakatmountain.
That would give them a vantage point over swathes of Idlib and Aleppoprovinces, including sprawling camps housing tens of thousands of displacedpeople. -APP/AFP
