The Kremlin announced on Thursday that Russian President Vladimir Putin is set to meet with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan Turkey's military operation in Syria.
Syria has called Turkey's Operation Peace Spring an aggression, and the international community condemned the actions of Ankara. On October 13, in tandem with the Kurds, Damascus sent troops to the north of Syria to counter the Turkish army, Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Thursday.
"You know that the UN expressed serious concern about the humanitarian situation, the flow of refugees to neighboring countries.
Indeed, during a recent telephone conversation, President Putin also expressed concern about the possible humanitarian consequences of this operation. Our position is well known, it has not undergone any changes," Peskov said.
He said the situation in northeast Syria remained tense.
"This will, of course, be a very important issue on the agenda of the talks in Sochi on Tuesday between Presidents Putin and Erdogan. At the same time, of course, as the presidents always do, they will use this meeting to compare positions on current issues of Russian-Turkish relations," Peskov said.
Critics from across the political spectrum condemned the president’s actions, accusing Trump of abandoning the Kurds, who have lost 11,000 lives battling the terror group.
The US withdrawal has created a vacuum that was immediately filled by Moscow, with Russian troops recording videos from abandoned American bases. John Allen, a retired US Marine general who heads the Brookings Institution, a think-tank, called it a “policy catastrophe”.
“Turkey’s invasion effectively undid in 96 hours what had been accomplished in four years. Everyone told Trump not to do this,” Mr Allen said. “The Pence mission is an attempt to put a battle dressing on a massive self-inflicted wound. Erdogan and Putin are calling the shots.”
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