(Bloomberg) -- Russia and Turkey remained at odds over a threatened assault by Russian-backed government forces on the last major rebel bastion in Syria as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin prepared to meet in the Black Sea resort of Sochi.
“The situation with Idlib is acute,” President Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said on Monday, state media reported. “There are differences in our approach.” Erdogan urged against using “pretexts” for military action in the northwestern Syrian province, while saying he backs joint steps against “terrorists,” according to Hurriyet newspaper.
Monday's will be the second meeting between the two leaders in less than two weeks. Russia and Iran, the two allies of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, clashed with Turkey at a summit on Sept. 7 in Tehran, rejecting Erdogan's call for an immediate cease-fire in Idlib. Still, amid a Turkish military build-up inside Syria to deter an attack on rebels there, government troops have held back from a full-scale offensive.
The U.S. has warned Assad and Russia against launching an assault and threatened to retaliate if regime forces use chemical weapons.
Almost 3 million civilians live in Idlib and fighting could provoke a massive new exodus of refugees to Turkey. There are tens of thousands of rebels in the region with reported ties to Turkey as well as an estimated 10,000 Jihadist fighters linked to al-Qaeda.
To contact the reporters on this story: Stepan Kravchenko in Sochi at skravchenko@bloomberg.net;Selcan Hacaoglu in Ankara at shacaoglu@bloomberg.net;Henry Meyer in Moscow at hmeyer4@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Gregory L. White at gwhite64@bloomberg.net, Paul Abelsky
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