MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 29th February, 2020) Syrian lawmaker Ahmad Meree told Sputnik that Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan always wanted to play the refugee card in order to put pressure on Europe.
Earlier in the day, Omer Celik, Turkish ruling AKP party spokesman, said that Ankara was no longer able to restrict the flow of refugees toward the country's borders with Greece and Bulgaria.
"Erdogan wants to tell European states and NATO that they have to face a new problem - the refugee crisis ... I think that Erdogan wanted European countries to do something in his war against Russia and against Syria. And I think Erdogan always wanted to use this card to make big pressure on these countries ... I think we are witnessing a new escalation between the EU and Russia, and a new big escalation between Syria, Russia and Turkey," Meree said.
In December, Syrian government forces launched an offensive in Idlib province to recapture pockets of the region still controlled by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham terrorist organization (formerly known as Jabhat al-Nusra, banned in Russia). Violence in the region has increased amid tit-for-tat strikes between government troops and Turkish units that maintain observation posts in northwest Syria.
Earlier on Friday, Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said that Turkish drones and ground forces targeted more than 200 Syrian armed forces targets in response to a Syrian airstrike that killed 33 Turkish troops.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has noted that Turkey had failed to fulfill its key commitments outlined in a bilateral deal on Syria's Idlib, signed in September 2018. Particularly, Turkey has failed to distinguish between members of the Syrian armed opposition, who are ready for dialogue with the government, and terrorists. Turkey has insisted it implements its commitments.
