KIEV, February 3. /TASS/. Eight people were killed during an attack on Turkish soldiers in Syria’s Idlib governorate, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday.
On Monday, Erdogan said that Turkish jets and artillery had carried out strikes against 40 targets in Syria’s Idlib in response to the shelling of its troops in the area of Saraqib. According to the NTV news channel, six soldiers were killed and nine others injured when their positions near Saraqib, Idlib province, came under fire. Ankara argues that the Syrian army had been notified of the positions the Turkish forces were taking in advance.
"As a result of attack by forces of [Syrian President Bashar Assad’s] regime in Idlib, eight people were killed. Five of them are servicemen and three are civilian personnel," the Turkish leader told reporters in Kiev.
According to Erdogan, "the events in Idlib are becoming more and more intolerable." He vowed a "tough retaliation to air and land assaults" on its forces in Idlib.
The president also expressed hope that "all the parties concerned will stick to their obligations under the Astana and Sochi agreements."
Erdogan also claimed that "approximately a million of Syrians" left the Idlib governorate and are now heading toward the border with Turkey.
"Idlib is now home to between 3 and 4 million people. About one million Syrians have already left it and are now heading toward our border. It will be difficult for Turkey to accept [such a great number of] refugees," he said.
He blamed the situation on the Syrian armed forces, who allegedly "carry out strikes on civilians."
Earlier, the Russian center for reconciliation of the opposing parties in Syria said Turkish military personnel had come under an attack of Syrian troops in Idlib, because Turkey had failed to notify Russia about the movements of its troops in advance. The Syrian troops were firing on terrorists retreating to Saraqib.
Idlib is the only region of Syria that remains under the control of illegal armed formations since 2012. In 2017, militants who refused to surrender in Eastern Ghouta and southern Syrian provinces moved to the de-escalation zone in Idlib. There are 12 observation posts of the Turkish army in the area.
Syrian government forces began to advance into Idlib on December 19, 2019. The military was able to liberate 46 settlements in southern and eastern Idlib, recovering 320 square kilometers of territory.