Turkey wants secure strip on Syrian side of border: Deputy PM
Turkey is calling for the creation of a secure zone 10 km inside Syria along its southern border, including the strategic border town of Azaz, Deputy Prime Minister Yalcin Akdogan has said, Reuters reports.
From our news desk:
Obama Says Truce Is 'Test' Of Russia's Intentions In Syria
U.S. President Barack Obama has challenged Russia to back peace rather than war in Syria and said a negotiated truce that is supposed to begin this week will be a "test" of Moscow's intentions.
Obama challenged recent assertions by Russian and Syrian leaders that they are winning the ground war against rebel groups in the "shattered" country.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's troops, backed by Russian air strikes, may have made "initial advances," but three-quarters of the country remains out of their control, Obama told reporters in California after an East Asian summit on February 16.
The president said Russia's and Syria's gains, moreover, have come at a horrible cost in human lives and displacement of thousands of Syrians, much of that the result of Russia's "indiscriminate" bombing.
"The real question in Syria is what is it that Russia thinks it gains if it gets a country that has been completely destroyed as an ally and that it now has to...spend billions of dollars to prop up," he said.
"A country has been shattered because [Assad] was willing to shatter it," he added, and Russia "has been party to that entire process."
What forced Russia to intervene in Syria was the Syrian regime's weakness, not its strength, Obama said.
"You send in your army when the horse you're backing isn't effective," he said, asserting that Russia's deep recession and faltering government revenues will not permit Moscow to support a long war there.
"Putin may think he's prepared to invest in a permanent occupation of Syria," Obama said, but "that's going to be pretty costly...If you look at the state of Russia's economy, that's not what would be best for Russia."
Obama said it would be smarter for Putin to help broker a peace settlement and political transition in Syria, and this week's truce gives him the opportunity to get started on that process.
The president's comments were echoed by other administration officials earlier on February 16.
State Department Spokesman Mark Toner said the United States expects Russia to honor the truce, which negotiators in Munich last week said should begin by February 19, and wants to "see some progress on a cessation of hostilities."
Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said the truce agreement is a "test" and "a new marker" for Russia.
"We will be keeping a close eye on who abides by it and who does not, and we will be in a position to say clearly, and to respond if necessary, if there are violations of that cessation of hostilities," Cook said.
Turkey trying to 'push all sides to escalate the situation in Syria': Damascus
Syria's permanent representative to the UN, Bashar al-Jafaari, has said that Turkey was trying to "push all sides to escalate the situation in Syria" and called for Ankara to be held accountable for shelling areas of northern Syria, Syrian state news agency SANA is reporting this morning.
Jafaari said that Turkey was "complicit" with Qatar and Saudi Arabia against Syria and its allies" and that "terrorism-supporting countries are suffering from [an] hysterical bout due to the Syrian Army's progress on all fronts."
Turkish shelling on northern Syria 'absolute mayhem': Russia
Russia's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said this morning that Turkish shelling of Kurdish and government positions in northern Syria were "absolute mayhem," RIA Novosti reports.
"What is happening right now on the Syria-Turkey border is absolute mayhem. In the context of the adoption and signing of the Munich agreement by the International Syria Support Group, when all countries have set their sights on a ceasefire, Turkey is shelling residential areas across its border, and is sending money, people and material-technical resources there. Just because it can't stand that these areas are being liberated from terrorists and extremists -- from those whom they have nurtured and maintained for so long," Zakharova told the Russia Today TV channel.
We are now closing the live blog for today. Join us again tomorrow morning when we will once again be Tracking Islamic State.
Russia only conducts airstrikes in Syria after verifying intel: Defense Ministry
Russia has gone on a concerted defensive today amid accusations that it carried out missile strikes on Syrian hospitals and a school that killed 50 civilians and could amount to war crimes.
A Defense Ministry spokesman has now said that Russian airstrikes in Syria are only carried out after verifying data in order to reduce the risk of harming civilians.
"All strikes against terrorist targets are carried out only after multiple checks of intelligence and concerted efforts with the aim of reducing the risk for civilians," Igor Konashenkov said.
"Once again I remind you that the Russian armed forces together with our partners have launched a multi-level intelligence system that works round the clock to obtain reliable information about the actions of terrorists in Syria and some of its neighbors."
Britain, France slam Russia's role in Syria war
Britain and France have criticized Russia's role in Syria's war, saying that Moscow must stop the conflict rather than fueling it, Reuters report.
The comments come after almost 50 civilians were killed on Feb. 15 in missile strikes on at least five medical facilities and two schools in rebel-controlled areas of Syria.
Death toll at MSF hospital in Syria rises to 11
Doctors Without Borders (MSF) have just tweeted to report that the death toll from yesterday's strike on a hospital in Marat al-Numan in Syria's Idlib province has risen to 11: five staff, five patients and one caregiver.
But that figure could rise even higher, as many people are still missing after the strike.
Amid the increasingly heated war of words between Turkey and Russia over Syria, Twitter comedian Karl Sharro offers a more lighthearted view of the situation.
Russia accuses Turkey of waging an 'information campaign' against it
Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov has accused Turkey of waging an "information campaign" against Turkey in the world's media, RIA Novosti reports.
"Ankara has launched an aggressive information campaign in the leading global media against Russia in order to avoid losing its control over north and north-western Syria, where Turkish forces have de facto in the past few years become the absolute rulers," Konashenkov said.