Turkey vows strong military action if Syria truce violated

Ankara, Turkey

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed Wednesday that his military would launch its harshest retaliation yet if the Syrian government breaks a fragile truce in Idlib province brokered last week.

The cease-fire arranged by Turkey and Russia — which support opposing sides in the conflict — halted a threemonth air and ground campaign by the Syrian government against the rebel-held province. That offensive killed hundreds and sent 1 million people fleeing toward the Turkish border.

The Russian-backed Syrian government offensive made significant gains in Syria’s last rebel stronghold, and Turkey sent thousands of troops across the border to reinforce the rebels, leading to rare direct fighting between Syrian and Turkish troops.

“If those across from us don’t keep their promise, we will never shy away from advancing on them in a much more serious way than before,” Erdogan said in his weekly address to his ruling party’s legislators.

Erdogan said there had been a number of small violations of the truce, which Turkey was monitoring carefully. He said Turkey’s priority would be the security of its troops manning a dozen observation posts inside Idlib. Some of those posts now fall within Syrian government-controlled territory. The posts are in place as part of a previous cease-fire agreement reached in 2018.