Ankara, London: Syria’s army and its Russian and Iranian allies are closing in on major rebel strongholds in the country’s north in an advance that has already derailed peace talks and may also unleash a new wave of refugees into Europe.
The military forces of President Bashar Al Assad, supported by Russian air power and Iran-backed Hezbollah militants, are only about three kilometers away from Aleppo, said Rami Abdul Rahman, head of the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a breakthrough that has cut off rebel forces there from vital supply lines to Turkey.
The United Nations on Wednesday suspended its long-awaited peace conference in Geneva just days after it began, as opposition groups called for international pressure to halt the government advance. NATO’s secretary-general, Jens Stoltenberg, said on Friday the Russian strikes, that mainly targeted opposition groups, were “undermining the efforts to find a political solution to the conflict.”
The intensification of fighting around Aleppo, once the country’s most populous city, provided an ominous backdrop for world leaders gathered in London to discuss aid to Syria as it could add to mass exodus of refugees that is already destabilising several European countries.
Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, speaking in London on Thursday, said as many as 70,000 Syrians were already on their way to Turkey from the northern Aleppo region, and warned of a wider humanitarian disaster if Aleppo city falls. The SOHR said about 40,000 people have fled the region in the past few days.
The number fleeing could surpass 100,000 if the rebels can’t restore links between Aleppo and Azaz, near the Turkish border, cut off by heavy bombardment by Russian warplanes, said Mehmet Emin Arslan, an official at the Humanitarian Aid Foundation in Turkey’s Gaziantep province, near the Syria border.
Syrian state-run television reported on Friday that government forces and allied militias have also overrun territory in the southern province of Daraa, a strategically important city between Damascus and the border with Jordan.
The regime’s military and allied fighters, backed by Russian airstrikes, on Friday pushed ahead with a major offensive in the north of the country, capturing another village and moving a step closer to encircling Aleppo, Syria’s largest city.
German Chancelor Angela Merkel will meet with Davutoglu in Ankara on Monday for talks, government spokesman Steffen Seibert said in Berlin, adding that Al Assad’s advance on Aleppo is a matter of “great concern.”
Taking Aleppo, Syria’s former commercial hub, would give Russia, Iran and Al Assad more bargaining power at any future settlement talks and more say in how the region will be redefined. It would also exacerbate tensions with Turkey, which supports the ouster of Al Assad and last year shot down a Russian fighter plane it said crossed into its territory during operations over Syria.
A siege of the city and capture of the northern supply line “would effectively diminish Turkey’s say over the war in Syria, while leaving it exposed to a growing refugee crisis,” Nihat Ali Ozcan, an analyst at the Economic Policy Research Foundation of Turkey, an Ankara-based think-tank, said by phone.
Meanwhile, there was mounting Western criticism of Russia’s military support for its ally, Syrian President Bashar Al Assad.
Russian airstrikes in Syrian that mainly target opposition forces are “undermining efforts to find a political solution to the conflict,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Friday.
Russian air force activity in Syria has also led to increased violations of Turkish airspace, Stoltenberg said in Amsterdam, on the sidelines of a meeting of EU defense ministers. “This creates risks, heightened tensions and is of course a challenge for NATO because they’re violations of NATO’s airspace,” he said.
- with inputs from agencies