Ankara is unlikely to launch any large military operation in Syria, despite threats by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, because the ongoing stand-off between Turkish forces and the Syrian military in Idlib province will all but guarantee defeat, Saji Taama, a member of the Syrian parliament, told Sputnik
GENOA (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 05th February, 2020) Ankara is unlikely to launch any large military operation in Syria, despite threats by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, because the ongoing stand-off between Turkish forces and the Syrian military in Idlib province will all but guarantee defeat, Saji Taama, a member of the Syrian parliament, told Sputnik.
Earlier on Wednesday, Erdogan threatened to launch a new military operation if Syria's Armed Forces failed to stop their offensive in the Idlib de-escalation zone and withdraw from the area close to Turkey's observation posts by the end of February. The threats come in the wake of an attack by the Syrian military on the Turkish forces in Idlib, which left six Turkish nationals, including service members and civilians, killed on Monday.
"I do not think Erdogan is going to launch any large operation because he knows the results are not in his interest and a defeat is certain," Taama said.
The lawmaker insisted that the Syrian military had a legitimate right to carry out military operations on the country's soil.
"Therefore, Erdogan's statements are not legal or ethical, and this is not the first time that Erdogan pushes his forces to fight in Syria. Since the beginning of the war against Syria, the Turkish-Jordanian role is clear in planning and supporting ISIS terrorists [Islamic State terror group, banned in Russia], and then participating in the fighting directly," Taama continued.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has stated that his country supports Turkey's military actions against the Syrian army in Idlib and views them as an acts of self-defense. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has meanwhile urged Turkey to comply with the existing agreements on Idlib and expressed his regret over Ankara's failure to dissociate the armed opposition from the terrorists there.
The Russian has military said that the Turkish forces came under attack because they had not informed it about their movements.
On Tuesday, Erdogan discussed the escalation in phone talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
In September 2018, Putin and Erdogan agreed to set up a demilitarized zone along the contact line between the armed opposition and the government forces in Idlib. Under the deal, the militants were supposed to withdraw military equipment from this area. Since then, however, Damascus has repeatedly attempted to recapture Idlib from armed groups, including Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (formerly known as Jabhat al-Nusra, a terrorist group banned in Russia).
