Syria says 2 warplanes downed by Turkey as tensions soar

KASTANIES, Greece — Syria’s official news agency stated two of its warplane have been shot down by Turkish forces inside northwest Syria, amid a army escalation there that’s led to rising direct clashes between Turkish and Syrian forces.

SANA says the jets have been focused over the Idlib region, and that the 4 pilots ejected with parachutes and landed safely.

Turkey’s Protection Ministry stated it had shot down two SU-24 aircraft and destroyed air protection techniques after one among its aerial drones was downed. Earlier, Syrian military-run media stated it had downed a drone inside northwest Syria, and was closing its airspace for any flights or drones throughout the country’s northwestern region. It stated any plane that penetrates Syrian airspace will be handled as hostile and shot down.

The Syrian announcement got here after two days of Turkish drone attacks in Idlib province that Syrian activists stated triggered heavy losses to Syrian authorities forces. These confrontations have added to hovering tensions between Turkey and Russia, which help opposing sides of the Syrian civil warfare.

Meanwhile, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had on Saturday announced his country opened its western borders to migrants and refugees hoping to go into the European Union. The United Nations stated Sunday that no less than 13,000 individuals have been massed on Turkey’s land border with Greece,

Erdogan didn't explicitly link his choice to open the gates to Europe to the army escalation in Syria’s northwestern Idlib province. Nevertheless, he has warned that Turkey “can’t deal with a brand new wave of migration,” an apparent reference to Idlib the place a whole lot of hundreds of determined Syrian civilians fleeing Syrian troop advances have moved towards the Turkish border.

Turkish Protection Minsiter Hulusi Akar, speaking from army headquarters near the Syrian border, stated Turkey aimed to confront Syrian authorities forces slightly than Russian troops. He referred to as on Moscow to influence Syrian President Bashar Assad to withdraw to 2018 cease-fire strains on the sides of Idlib.

Referring to losses inflicted on Syria, he stated Turkey had “neutralized” more than 2,200 Syrian troops, 103 tanks and eight helicopters.

“The Spring Defend operation, which was launched following the abominable attack in Idlib on Feb. 27, continues successfully,” Akar stated, referring to air strikes that killed 33 Turkish troopers.

The operation is Turkey’s fourth within the war-torn nation since 2016.

The heavy preventing in northwest Syria has also triggered a humanitarian disaster and the only largest wave of displacement in the nine-year Syrian civil conflict.

Ankara is nervous it'd come underneath renewed worldwide strain to open its now sealed border with Syria and supply refuge to a whole lot of hundreds more Syrian civilians. Turkey already hosts three.6 million Syrian refugees.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s determination to open his country’s borders with Europe made good on a longstanding menace to let refugees into the continent. His announcement marked a dramatic departure from the current policy and an obvious try to strain Europe into offering Turkey more help in dealing with the fallout from the Syrian warfare to its south.

The U.N.’s International Organization for Migration stated Sunday that by the earlier night, its employees working along the Turkish-Greek land border “had noticed no less than 13,000 individuals gathered on the formal border crossing factors at Pazarkule and Ipsala and a number of informal border crossings, in groups of between a number of dozen and more than 3,000.”

Greek authorities fired tear fuel and stun grenades by way of Saturday to stop repeated attempts by a crowd of greater than 4,000 individuals massed on the border crossing in Kastanies to cross, and fought a cat-and-mouse recreation with teams slicing holes in a border fence along the border to crawl via.

Erdogan’s communications director Fahrettin Altun later stated Turkey had modified its focus to getting ready for the potential for new arrivals from Syria “as an alternative of stopping refugees who intend emigrate to Europe.”

“Europe and others must take strong motion to deal with this monumental problem,” Altun stated. “We will’t be anticipated to do that on our personal.”

He accused critics of Turkey’s refugee policy of “rampant hypocrisy.”

He claimed 80,888 had left Turkey for Europe “prior to now a number of days” and referred to as on Europe to share the burden of wanting after refugees. However there was no evidence to help his declare. Greece has shut its border, and there have been a number of dozen arrests of people who managed to cross via the border, Greek authorities have stated.

Greek Deputy Defense Minister Alkiviadis Stefanis advised the native broadcaster Skai there have been around 9,600 attempts to illegally cross Greece’s border through the night time Saturday to Sunday. Stefanis stated all have been successfully thwarted. Beforehand a number of dozen migrants had managed to make it by means of.

Greek officers stated they arrested 66 migrants Friday, 17 of whom have been sentenced to 3.5 years in jail for getting into the country illegally. All Afghans, they have been the primary migrants sentenced for unlawful entry since 2014. On Saturday, Greece arrested one other 70 individuals who tried to cross the land border illegally.

Stavros Zamalides, president of the area people in Kastanies, stated Turkish troopers have been actively serving to individuals cross the Greek border clandestinely.

“Turkish troopers with cutters of their arms have been slicing the wires of the fence to steer the unlawful migrants” into crossing the border, he stated. “The attempt was thwarted by the intervention of our own patrol that occurred to be passing that area on patrol on the time, and it repaired the injury in the fence,” he added.

Twenty-year-old Afghan Ayamuddin Azimi made it to the Greek border village of Nea Vyssa together with a compatriot. He stated Turkey had opened its borders “to save lots of the refugees” but once they acquired to the frontier they found the Greek aspect closed.

He crossed clandestinely, he stated. “What can I do? We've got nothing to do. That is our life.”

Others have been making the brief but typically perilous sea crossing from the Turkish coast to the Greek islands.

Initial figures collected by Greece’s Merchant Marine Ministry from the coast guard around the japanese Aegean islands showed a clear improve in the number of individuals arriving by dinghies from the close by Turkish coast.

By midday Sunday, the ministry stated preliminary figures indicated 390 individuals had arrived since Sunday morning in a number of boats. The vast majority arrived on the island of Lesbos, with smaller numbers on Chios and Samos. More have been believed to be trying to succeed in the islands.

In parallel, the heavy preventing in northwest Syria has pushed almost 950,000 displaced Syrian civilians to flee toward the border with Turkey.

Turkey is a robust backer of the rebels in Syria’s Idlib province. However the presence of hundreds of Turkish troops there has finished little to stop Assad’s relentless campaign to seize the last rebel-held territories.

Dozens of Turkish soldiers have been killed by the Russian-backed Syrian authorities forces around Idlib in current days.

Erdogan has warned of an “imminent” operation towards Assad’s forces until they pull again from Turkish strains in Syria by the top of February.

As that deadline passed Saturday night time, Turkish drones bombed Syrian authorities targets in Idlib, and Turkey-backed rebels shelled Syrian army positions. Preventing raged close to the strategic city of Saraqeb as government troops sought to take it again from rebels, opposition activists and Syrian state-media stated. The town, which lies on the Damascus-Aleppo freeway, had changed arms a number of occasions within the last month.

Turkey has misplaced 55 troopers in Idlib in February, including 33 killed in an airstrike on Thursday, and now feels the need to reply strongly. Talks between Turkey and Russia, the main power brokers in Syria, have so far failed to defuse tensions.

On Saturday, Erdogan stated Turkey would not stand in the means of refugees and migrants already in the country who hope to head to Europe.

“We won't shut the gates to refugees,” he stated. “The European Union has to maintain its promises. We aren't obliged to look after and feed so many refugees.”

Beneath a 6 billion euro deal in 2016, Turkey agreed to stem the tide of refugees to Europe in return for financial help after extra than one million individuals entered Europe in 2015. It has since accused the EU of failing to honor the agreement. Erdogan has steadily threatened to “open the gates” and permit refugees and migrants to go to Europe until extra worldwide help was offered.

Src: Syria says 2 warplanes downed by Turkey as tensions soar
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