Tag Archives: Turkey

United Nations envoy says Idlib could become the next Aleppo

Evacuees from the Shi'ite Muslim villages of al-Foua and Kefraya ride a bus at insurgent-held al-Rashideen in Aleppo province, Syria

By Stephanie Nebehay and Suleiman Al-Khalidi

GENEVA/AMMAN (Reuters) – A senior United Nations official warned on Thursday that thousands of people evacuated from rebel-held areas of Aleppo after a crushing government offensive could suffer the same fate in their new place of refuge outside the city.

U.N. Special Envoy Staffan de Mistura said a cessation of hostilities across Syria was vital if another battle like the bloody fight for Aleppo was to be avoided.

At least 34,000 people, both civilians and fighters, had been evacuated from east Aleppo in a week-long operation, the latest U.N. figures show.

“Many of them have gone to Idlib, which could be in theory the next Aleppo,” de Mistura warned in Geneva.

Thousands of refugees from Aleppo were ferried to Idlib, arousing fears that the rebel-held city in northwestern Syria could be next. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has declared that the war is far from over and that his armed forces would march on other rebel-held areas.

Evacuees from Aleppo had expressed concerns about being taken to Idlib and a senior European diplomat said earlier this month that this would suit Russia, Assad’s main military backer, as it would put “all their rotten eggs in one basket”.

Assad said that regaining full control of Aleppo was a victory shared by his Russian and Iranian allies.

The last group of civilians and rebels holed up in a small enclave was expected to leave in the next 24 hours, with the Syrian army and its allies seizing all of the city, delivering the biggest prize of the nearly six-year war to Assad.

In comments after meeting a senior Iranian delegation, Assad said his battlefield successes were a “basic step on the road to ending terrorism in the whole of Syria and creating the right circumstances for a solution to end the war”.

Russia’s air force conducted hundreds of raids that pulverized rebel-held parts of Aleppo while Iranian-backed militias, led by the Lebanese group Hezbollah, poured thousands of fighters to fight rebels into the city.

Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Thursday that Russian air strikes in Syria had killed 35,000 rebel fighters and halted a chain of revolutions in the Middle East.

Speaking at a gathering of senior military officials that appeared designed to showcase Russia’s military achievements, Shoigu said Moscow’s intervention had prevented the collapse of the Syrian state.

LAST STAGES

More fighters were evacuated overnight from east Aleppo to opposition-held areas under an agreement between the warring sides, the International Committee of the Red Cross said.

“In one of the last stages of the evacuation, more than 4,000 fighters were evacuated in private cars, vans, and pick-ups from eastern Aleppo to western rural Aleppo,” ICRC spokeswoman Krista Armstrong said.

This brought to around 34,000 the total number of people evacuated from the district over the past week in an operation hampered by heavy snow and wind, she said.

“The evacuation will continue for the entire day and night and most probably tomorrow (Friday). Thousands are still expected to be evacuated,” Armstrong said.

“Most are heading towards camps, or to their relatives, or shelter locations,” said Ahmad al-Dbis, a medical aid worker heading a team evacuating patients from Aleppo. “The humanitarian situation in northern Syria is very difficult, because the area is already densely populated since it has people displaced from all over Syria.”

Those leaving Aleppo are not only going to Idlib, the name of a city and province southwest of Aleppo, but to villages in the countryside in Aleppo province that lies west and north of the city and has also been heavily bombed.

Ahmed Kara Ali, spokesman for Ahrar al Sham, a rebel group that is involved in departure negotiations, told Reuters “large numbers” were left but it was difficult to estimate how many remained, beyond it being in the thousands.

Hundreds of other people are also still being evacuated from two villages besieged by rebels near Idlib and taken to government lines in Aleppo, part of the deal that has allowed insurgents to withdraw from the city carrying light weapons.

HEAVY SNOW

Another rebel official said a heavy snow storm that hit northern Syria and the sheer numbers of civilians still remaining were among the factors behind the delay in the mass evacuation.

“The numbers of civilians, their cars alongside and of course the weather all are making the evacuation slow,” Munir al-Sayal, head of the political wing of Ahrar al Sham, said, adding he expected the operation to be completed on Thursday.

The tiny pocket they are fleeing is all that remains of a rebel sector that covered nearly half the city before being besieged in the summer, the cue for intense air strikes that reduced swathes of it to rubble. As the months of bombardment wore on, rescue and health services collapsed.

The once-flourishing economic center with its renowned ancient sites has been devastated during the war which has killed more than 300,000 people, created the world’s worst refugee crisis and allowed for the rise of Islamic State.

ASSAD’S FUTURE

Russian President Vladimir Putin, Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and chief of Russia's General Staff Valery Gerasimov attend a meeting with top military officials at the Defence Ministry in Moscow, Russia

Russian President Vladimir Putin, Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and chief of Russia’s General Staff Valery Gerasimov attend a meeting with top military officials at the Defence Ministry in Moscow, Russia December 22, 2016. Sputnik/Kremlin/Alexei Nikolskyi via REUTERS

Russia is not discussing the future of Assad in its talks with Iran and Turkey, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said.

The foreign and defense ministers of Russia, Iran and Turkey met in Moscow on Tuesday and agreed to help broker a new peace deal for Syria.

De Mistura said that cessation of hostilities across Syria was a “priority” and having “regional players like Turkey, Russia and Iran talk to each other is a good thing”.

Quoting Russian President Vladimir Putin, de Mistura said talks expected to be held in Kazakhstan were “not considered a competition, it is complementary and a support to the preparation of the U.N. role (in Syrian peace talks) on 8 Feb.”

(Reporting by Suleiman Al-Khalidi in Amman, Peter Hobson in Moscow, Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva and Ellen Francis in Beirut, writing by Peter Millership and Giles Elgood)

Turkish prosecutors probing why Russian envoy’s killer not taken alive: state media

Russian ambassador after assassination

By Ece Toksabay

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Turkish prosecutors are investigating why the off-duty policeman who shot dead Russia’s ambassador to Turkey was not captured alive, state media said on Wednesday, as the number of people arrested over the killing rose to 11.

Ambassador Andrei Karlov was gunned down from behind while delivering a speech in an Ankara art gallery on Monday. His killer was identified by Turkish authorities as Mevlut Mert Altintas, 22, who shouted “Don’t forget Aleppo” and “Allahu Akbar” – Arabic for “God is greatest” – as he fired the shots.

Russian and Turkey both cast the attack as an attempt to ruin a recent thawing of relations chilled by the civil war in Syria, where they back opposing sides. The war reached a potential turning point last week when Russian-backed Syrian forces ended rebel resistance in the northern city of Aleppo.

The state-run Anadolu Agency said prosecutors were investigating why Turkish special forces, who stormed the gallery after the killing, did not take Altintas alive.

Initial findings suggest he continued to fire at police officers, shouting: “You cannot capture me alive!” Anadolu said. The officers shot Altintas in the legs, but he continued to return fire while crawling on the ground, it said.

President Tayyip Erdogan defended the police actions. “There is some speculation about why he wasn’t captured alive. Look what happened in Besiktas when they tried to capture an attacker alive,” Erdogan told reporters, referring to twin bombings this month outside the stadium of Istanbul’s Besiktas soccer team.

Forty-four people, mostly policemen, were killed and more than 150 wounded in the dual bombing, the second of which saw a suicide bomber detonating explosives while surrounded by police.

A Reuters cameraman at the scene of Monday’s killing of the Russian envoy said he heard shooting from inside the art gallery for some minutes after special forces stormed the building.

Anadolu also said the number of people detained in connection with the killing had risen to 11. Security sources told Reuters on Tuesday that six people – including Altintas’s mother, father, sister and flatmate – were in custody.

At Russian President Vladimir Putin’s request, a joint Russian-Turkish investigation team has been set up. The Russian contingent is made up of 18 officials, including a prosecutor and two defense attaches, Anadolu said.

More than 100 people from the Ankara police department, mostly from the anti-terrorism unit, are involved, it said.

The Kremlin said on Wednesday it was too early to say who stood behind the murder of its ambassador. It has also said the assassination was a blow to Turkey’s prestige, comments that are likely to unnerve Ankara.

(Additional reporting by Gulsen Solaker and Melih Aslan; editing by David Dolan and Mark Heinrich)

Syrian army poised to enter Aleppo’s last rebel enclave

By Angus McDowall and Maria Tsvetkova

BEIRUT/MOSCOW (Reuters) – As President Bashar al-Assad’s army closed in on the last rebel enclave in Aleppo on Tuesday, Russia, Iran and Turkey said they were ready to help broker a Syrian peace deal.

The Syrian army used loudspeakers to broadcast warnings to insurgents that it was poised to enter their rapidly diminishing area during the day and told them to speed up their evacuation of the city.

Complete control of Aleppo would be a major victory for Assad against rebels who have defied him in Syria’s most populous city for four years.

Ministers from Russia, Iran and Turkey adopted a document they called the “Moscow Declaration”, which set out the principles that any peace agreement should follow. At talks in the Russian capital, they also backed an expanded ceasefire in Syria.

“Iran, Russia and Turkey are ready to facilitate the drafting of an agreement, which is already being negotiated, between the Syrian government and the opposition, and to become its guarantors,” the declaration said.

The move underlines the growing strength of Moscow’s links with Tehran and Ankara, despite the murder on Monday of Russia’s ambassador to Turkey, and reflects Russian President Vladimir Putin’s desire to cement his influence in the Middle East and beyond.

Russia and Iran back Assad while Turkey has backed some rebel groups.

Putin said last week that he and his Turkish counterpart Tayyip Erdogan were working to organize a new series of Syrian peace negotiations without the involvement of the United States or the United Nations.

For his part, U.N. Syria mediator Staffan de Mistura intends to convene peace talks in Geneva on Feb. 8.

GRIM EVACUATION

In Syria, an operation to evacuate civilians and fighters from rebel-held eastern Aleppo has now brought out 37,500 people since late last week, Turkey said. Turkish and Russian ministers estimated the evacuation would be complete within two days.

But it is hard to know if that goal is realistic, given the problems that have beset the evacuation so far, and the wide variation in estimates of how many have left and how many remain. The International Committee of the Red Cross put the number evacuated since the operation began on Thursday at only 25,000.

A rebel official in Turkey told Reuters that even after thousands left on Monday, only about half of the civilians who wanted to leave had done so.

Insurgent fighters would only leave once all the civilians who wanted to go had departed, the rebel said. The ceasefire and evacuation agreement allows rebels to carry personal weapons but not heavier arms.

Estimates of the number of people waiting for evacuation range from a few thousand to tens of thousands.

The United Nations said Syria had authorized the world body to send 20 more staff to east Aleppo who would monitor the evacuation.

A U.N. official said 750 people had been evacuated from the two besieged Shi’ite villages of Foua and Kefraya, which government forces had insisted must be included in the deal to bring people out of Aleppo.

The evacuations are part of a ceasefire arrangement that ends fighting in Aleppo, once Syria’s most populous city.

Conditions for those being evacuated are grim, with evacuees waiting for convoys of buses in freezing winter temperatures. An aid worker said that some evacuees had reported that children had died during the long, cold wait.

PATRIOTIC MUSIC

In government-held parts of Aleppo, the mood was very different.

A large crowd thronged to a sports hall in the city, waving Syrian flags and dancing to patriotic music, a large portrait of Assad hanging on one wall, in a celebration of the rebels’ defeat in the city that was broadcast live on state television.

The rebel withdrawal from Aleppo after a series of rapid advances by the army and allied Shi’ite militias including Hezbollah since late November has brought Assad his biggest victory of the nearly six-year-old war.

However, despite the capture of Aleppo and progress against insurgents near Damascus, the fighting is far from over, with large areas remaining in rebel control in the northwestern countryside and in the far south.

The jihadist group Islamic State also controls swathes of territory in the deserts and Euphrates river basin in eastern Syria.

Assad is backed by Russian air power and Shi’ite militias including Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement and Iraq’s Harakat al-Nujaba. The mostly Sunni rebels include groups supported by Turkey, the United States and Gulf monarchies.

For four years, the city was split between a rebel-held eastern sector and the government-held western districts. During the summer, the army and its allies besieged the rebel sector before using intense bombardment and ground assaults to retake it in recent months.

 

(Reporting by Angus McDowall, Humeyra Pamuk, Stephanie Nebehay, Peter Hobson, writing by Giles Elgood, editing by Peter Millership)

Russian ambassador shot dead in Ankara gallery

Russian Ambassador to Turkey Andrei Karlov lies on the ground after he was shot by unidentified man at an art gallery in Ankara.

By Tuvan Gumrukcu and Umit Bektas

ANKARA (Reuters) – The Russian ambassador to Turkey was shot in the back and killed as he gave a speech at an Ankara art gallery on Monday by an off-duty police officer who shouted “Don’t forget Aleppo” and “Allahu Akbar” as he opened fire.

The Russian foreign ministry confirmed the death of envoy Andrei Karlov, calling it a “terrorist act”. Relations between Moscow and Ankara have long been strained over the conflict in Syria, with the two support opposing sides in the war.

Russia is an ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and its air strikes helped Syrian forces end rebel resistance last week in the northern city of Aleppo. Turkey, which seeks Assad’s ouster, has been repairing ties with Moscow after shooting down a Russian warplane over Syria last year.

The Ankara mayor said on Twitter the gunman was a 22-year-old police officer. Two security sources told Reuters he was not on duty at the time.

The attacker was smartly dressed in black suit and tie and stood, alone, behind the ambassador as he made a speech at the art exhibition, a person at the scene told Reuters.

“He took out his gun and shot the ambassador from behind. We saw him lying on the floor and then we ran out,” said the witness, who asked not to be identified. People took refuge in adjoining rooms as the shooting continued.

A video showed the attacker shouting: “Don’t forget Aleppo, don’t forget Syria!” and “Allahu Akbar (God is Greatest) as screams rang out. He paced about and shouted as he held the gun in one hand and waved the other in the air.

A Reuters cameraman at the scene said gunfire rang out for some time after the attack. Turkey’s Anadolu news agency said the gunman had been “neutralized”, apparently killed.

Another photograph showed four people the ambassador lying on the floor.

“We regard this as a terrorist act,” said Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova. “Terrorism will not win and we will fight against it decisively.”

It was not clear whether the gunman was a lone operator, driven perhaps by popular discontent over Russian action in Syria or affiliated to a group like Islamic State, which has carried out a string of bomb attacks in Turkey in the last year.

Since a failed coup in July, President Tayyip Erdogan has been purging the police of supporters of an exiled cleric and former ally, Fethullah Gulen, whom he characterizes as the chief terrorist threat to Turkey.

Russian Ambassador to Turkey Andrei Karlov makes a speech at an art gallery shortly before he was shot in Ankara, Turkey.

Russian Ambassador to Turkey Andrei Karlov makes a speech at an art gallery shortly before he was shot in Ankara, Turkey.
REUTERS/Ugur Kavas

U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT

Erdogan contacted Russian President Vladimir Putin to brief him on the shooting, a Turkish official said. It was not immediately clear if Erdogan would release a statement later.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu was due to meet with his Russian and Iranian counterparts in Russia on Tuesday to discuss the situation in Syria. Officials said the meeting would still go on, despite the attack.

Turkey’s foreign ministry said it would not allow the attack to cast a shadow over Ankara’s relations with Moscow.

“The attack comes at a bad time: Moscow and Ankara have only recently restored diplomatic ties after Turkey downed a Russian aircraft in November 2015,” the Stratfor think-tank said.

“Though the attack will strain relations between the two countries, it is not likely to rupture them altogether.”

The U.S. State Department, involved in diplomatic contacts with Russia in an attempt to resolve a refugee crisis unfolding around the city of Aleppo, condemned the attack.

Tensions have escalated in recent weeks as Russian-backed Syrian forces have fought for control of the eastern part of Aleppo, triggering a stream of refugees.

Turkey has been hit by multiple bomb attacks that have been claimed by Kurdish militants, and beat back an attempted coup in July, where rogue soldiers commandeered tanks, warplanes and helicopters in attempt to overthrow the parliament.

Since then, the government has launched a sweeping crackdown on the judiciary, police and civil service in attempt to root out the coup plotters. The involvement of a police officer in Monday’s attack could raise questions for Ereogan about a force denuded now of a number of senior and rank-and-file officers.

(Additional reporting by Orhan Coskun, Nevzat Devranoglu, Tulay Karadeniz, Ercan Gurses and Gulsen Solaker in Ankara; Humeyra Pamuk and Ece Toksabay in Istanbul; Andrew Osborn and Andrey Ostroukh in Moscow; Writing by Daren Butler and David Dolan; editing by Ralph Boulton and Mark Trevelyan)

Russian ambassador shot dead in Ankara

Turkish police secure the area near an art gallery where the Russian Ambassador to Turkey Andrei Karlov was shot, in Ankara.

ANKARA (Reuters) – The Russian ambassador to Ankara was shot dead in an attack at an art gallery in the Turkish capital on Monday by a gunman shouting “Don’t forget Aleppo”.

A Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman confirmed the death of envoy Andrei Karlov, which marked one of the most serious spillovers of the Syria conflict into Turkey.

Andrei Gennadiyevich Karlov in a 2005 photo.

Andrei Gennadiyevich Karlov in a 2005 photo. REUTERS/Korea News Service

Russia is a close ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and its air strikes were instrumental in helping Syrian forces end rebel resistance last week in the northern city of Aleppo.

The Anadolu news agency said the gunman had been “neutralized” soon after the attack, Relations between Moscow and Ankara have long been fraught over the conflict, with the two supporting opposing sides.

The attacker was smartly dressed in black suit and tie, and standing behind the ambassador as he made a speech at the art exhibition, a person at the scene told Reuters.

“He took out his gun and shot the ambassador from behind. We saw him lying on the floor and then we ran out,” said the witness, who asked not to be identified.

A Reuters cameraman at the scene said gunfire rang out for some time after the attack.

A video showed the attacker shouting: “Don’t forget Aleppo, don’t forget Syria!”

As screams rang out, the gunman could then be seen pacing about and shouting as he held the gun in one hand and waved the other in the air.

Another photograph showed four people including what appeared to be the ambassador lying on the floor.

Russia and Turkey have both been involved in the conflict in Syria, which borders Turkey. Turkey has been a staunch opponent of Assad, while Russia has deployed troops and its air force in support of the Syrian leader.

The U.S. State Department, involved in diplomatic contacts with Russia in an attempt to resolve a refugee crisis unfolding around the city of Aleppo, condemned the attack.

Tensions have escalated in recent weeks as Russian-backed Syrian forces have fought for control of the eastern part of the city of Aleppo, triggering a stream of refugees.

It was not immediately clear who carried out the attack. Islamic State militants have been active in Turkey and carried out several bomb attacks on Turkish targets over the last year.

(Reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu; Writing by Daren Butler; editing by Ralph Boulton and Mark Trevelyan)

Turkey to set up camp for Aleppo evacuees in Syria

By Umit Ozdal

CILVEGOZU, Turkey (Reuters) – Turkey plans to set up a camp inside Syria to host people evacuated from the city of Aleppo but will continue to take the sick and wounded to Turkish hospitals, officials said on Friday.

Two potential sites, around 3.5 km (2 miles) inside Syria, have been identified for a camp with the capacity to host up to 80,000 people, two senior officials told Reuters.

“Work on the infrastructure for the camp will begin shortly,” another official from the Turkish aid organization IHH said by phone from inside Syria. The camp will be jointly set up by the Turkish Red Crescent, disaster agency AFAD and IHH.

The IHH official said evacuees had so far largely found shelter with relatives in and around Syria’s Idlib province, southwest of Aleppo, but added that work to identify those with nowhere to go was under way.

Some arrived on Friday at a clinic in Syria close to the Turkish border gate of Cilvegozu where they were tended to by Turkish aid workers, video footage obtained by Reuters showed.

“We were bombed by a plane,” said one man, his head and arm bandaged, lying on a bed hugging his young son.

“All my family were killed and all I have left is him and a daughter,” he said. He had been told his daughter had been brought to Turkey but did not know her condition or whereabouts.

Turkey has taken in 55 wounded or sick evacuees, according to Hasan Aydinlik, head of an emergency response division of the Turkish Health Ministry. He told reporters at the Cilvegozu crossing that one of the wounded had died in hospital while four people, including a child, were in serious condition.

The evacuation of the last opposition-held areas of Aleppo was suspended on Friday after pro-government militias demanded that wounded people should also be brought out of two Shi’ite Muslim villages being besieged by rebels.

Turkey says that close to 8,000 people – rebels and civilians – have been evacuated under a ceasefire deal it brokered with Russia.

Turkey is already sheltering around 2.7 million Syrian refugees. An aid official with Syrian NGO Shafak, working on the Aleppo evacuation, said he expected more people to head for the Turkish border as the villages west of Aleppo were now full.

Aleppo was divided between government and rebel areas of control for much of the nearly six-year-old civil war. But a lightning advance by the Syrian army and its allies that began in mid-November saw the insurgents lose most of their territory.

(Reporting by Orhan Coskun and Ercan Gurses in Ankara, Humeyra Pamuk in Istanbul; Editing by Daren Butler and Nick Tattersall/Mark Heinrich)

Putin and Erdogan push for Syria talks without U.S. or U.N.

By Andrew Osborn and Nick Tattersall

MOSCOW/ISTANBUL (Reuters) – President Vladimir Putin said he and his Turkish counterpart Tayyip Erdogan are working to organize a new series of Syrian peace talks without the involvement of the United States or the United Nations.

In a snub to Washington, Putin made clear on Friday that the initiative was the sole preserve of Moscow and Turkey and that the peace talks, if they happened, would be in addition to intermittent U.N.-brokered negotiations in Geneva.

“The next step is to reach an agreement on a total ceasefire across the whole of Syria,” Putin said in Tokyo. “We are conducting very active negotiations with representatives of the armed opposition, brokered by Turkey.”

Putin, who has leveraged Russia’s role in Syria to boost his diplomatic muscle, said the talks proposal was being put to the Syrian government and the opposition. Kazakhstan, the proposed venue, is a Russian ally, and Putin said the talks could take place in Astana, the Kazakh capital.

The surprise move underlines the growing strength of Moscow’s rapprochement with Ankara, with which it fell out last year over the shooting down of a Russian plane, and reflects Russia’s desire to cement its growing influence in the Middle East and more widely.

It also shows how fed up Russia is with what it sees as long and pointless talks with the Obama administration over Syria. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov earlier this week dismissed those talks as “fruitless sitting around” and said Ankara might prove a more effective partner on Syria.

Turkey, which wants to boost its global sway too, is also deeply frustrated by U.S. policy in Syria, particularly Washington’s support for Kurdish militia fighters it sees as a hostile force, and by what it views as Barack Obama’s failure to give enough support to the rebels.

Putin played down the idea that the talks would sideline or overshadow similar talks brokered by the United Nations that have been held intermittently in Geneva.

“It won’t compete with the Geneva talks, but will complement them. Wherever the conflicting sides meet, in my view it is the right thing to do to try to find a political solution,” he said.

The initiative is unlikely to go down well with U.N. envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura however. He told reporters in Paris on Thursday that it was time for all sides to return to the table, but the United Nations would have to broker any talks for them to have legitimacy.

ODD COUPLE

Russia still hopes it can co-operate on Syria with the United States and join forces with Washington against Islamic State once President-elect Donald Trump takes office.

But Trump will not be inaugurated until Jan. 20, leaving a power vacuum, and is likely in any case to need some time to formulate foreign policy.

The alliance between Moscow and Ankara is at first glance an odd one. Russia is one of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s closest allies, while Turkey, a NATO member, wants him removed.

But Ankara may be ready to accept a transition in which Assad is involved, provided he ultimately relinquishes power.

Turkey’s main priority, on which it will want at least tacit Russian agreement, is to ensure that Kurdish militias are unable to gain further territory in Syria along its borders.

Ankara launched an incursion into Syria, “Operation Euphrates Shield”, in August to push Islamic State out of a 90-km (55-mile) stretch of frontier territory and prevent Kurdish groups from seizing ground in their wake.

Deputy Prime Minister Nurettin Canikli acknowledged two weeks ago that Turkey “would not have moved so comfortably” without the rapprochement with Russia, which effectively controls parts of northern Syrian air space.

Turkey now wants the rebels it supports to push further south into Syria and take the Islamic State-held city of al-Bab, around 40 km northeast of Aleppo.

Erdogan is determined that the Turkish-backed rebels capture the city to prevent Kurdish militias from doing so. But that ambition could cause difficulties with Moscow, as al-Bab lies close to the front lines of Assad’s allies.

ALEPPO DEAL

Putin had only warm words for the prospect of deeper Russo-Turkish co-operation however and said the evacuation of rebels from Aleppo was something that he and Erdogan had agreed on.

He hoped the Syrian army would be able to consolidate its position in Aleppo and civilians return to normal life.

The RIA agency this week quoted Andrei Kelin, a senior Russian Foreign Ministry official, as saying it had been easier to deal with Turkey on Aleppo than the United States.

“It was much more straightforward to reach agreements with Turkey than with the Americans,” he was cited as saying.

Putin played down the Syrian government’s recent loss of Palmyra to Islamic State, blaming the lack of coordination between the U.S. led coalition, the Syrian authorities, and Russia for the setback.

“Everything that is happening in Palmyra is the result of uncoordinated action,” said Putin.

“The question of Palmyra is purely symbolic. Aleppo is much more important from a military-political point of view.”

(Additional reporting by Katya Golubkova in Tokyo and John Irish in Paris; Editing by Giles Elgood)

Aleppo rebel evacuation under way after ceasefire deal

A still image from video taken December 15, 2016 over eastern Aleppo shows an operation to evacuate thousands of civilians and fighters in buses from Aleppo, Syria

By Laila Bassam, Suleiman Al-Khalidi and Tom Perry

ALEPPO, Syria/BEIRUT (Reuters) – An operation to evacuate thousands of civilians and fighters from the last rebel bastion in Aleppo began on Thursday, part of a ceasefire deal that would end years of fighting for the city and mark a major victory for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

A convoy of ambulances and buses with nearly 1,000 people aboard drove out of the devastated rebel-held area of Aleppo, which was besieged and bombarded for months by Syrian government forces, a Reuters reporter on the scene said.

A Syrian official source told Reuters that a second convoy was likely to bring people out on Thursday.

Women cried out in celebration as the buses passed through a government-held area, and some waved the Syrian flag.

An elderly woman, who had gathered with others in a government area to watch the convoy set off, raised her hands to the sky, saying: “God save us from this crisis, and from the (militants). They brought us only destruction.”

Wissam Zarqa, an English teacher in the rebel zone, said most people were happy to be leaving safely. But he said: “Some of them are angry they are leaving their city. I saw some of them crying. This is almost my feeling in a way.”

Earlier, ambulances trying to evacuate people came under fire from fighters loyal to the Syrian government, who injured three people, a rescue service spokesman said.

“Thousands of people are in need of evacuation, but the first and most urgent thing is wounded, sick and children, including orphans,” said Jan Egeland, the U.N. humanitarian adviser for Syria.

Turkey is considering establishing a camp in Syria for civilians being evacuated from Aleppo and the number of people brought out of the city could reach 100,000, Deputy Prime Minister Veysi Kaynak said.

In Aleppo’s rebel-held area, columns of black smoke could be seen as residents hoping to depart burned personal belongings they do not want to leave for government forces to loot.

RUSSIAN DRONES

A senior Russian general, Viktor Poznikhir, said the Syrian army had almost finished its operations in Aleppo. Since August, around 3,000 rebels had left and 108,000 civilians had been moved to safe parts of the city, he said.

Rebels and their families would be taken towards Idlib, a city in northwestern Syria which is outside government control, the Russian defense ministry said.

Idlib province, mostly controlled by hardline Islamist groups, is not a popular destination for fighters and civilians from east Aleppo, where nationalist rebel groups predominated.

A senior European diplomat said last week that the fighters had a choice between surviving for a few weeks in Idlib or dying now in Aleppo. “For the Russians it’s simple. Place them all in Idlib and then they have all their rotten eggs in one basket.”

Idlib is already a target for Syrian and Russian air strikes but it is unclear if the government will push for a ground assault or simply seek to contain rebels there for now.

The International Rescue Committee said: “Escaping Aleppo doesn’t mean escaping the war.

“After witnessing the ferocity of attacks on civilians in Aleppo, we are very concerned that the sieges and barrel bombs will follow the thousands who arrive in Idlib.”

The evacuation deal was expected to include the safe passage of wounded from the Shi’ite villages of Foua and Kefraya near Idlib that are besieged by rebels. A convoy set off to evacuate the villages on Thursday, Syrian state media said.

Efforts to evacuate eastern Aleppo began earlier in the week with a truce brokered by Russia, Assad’s most powerful ally, and Turkey, which has backed the opposition. That agreement broke down following renewed fighting on Wednesday and the evacuation did not take place then as planned.

A rebel official said a new truce came into effect early on Thursday. Shortly before the new deal was announced, clashes raged in Aleppo.

Government forces made a new advance in Sukkari – one of a handful of districts still held by rebels – and brought half of the neighborhood under their control, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group.

The Russian defense ministry said – before the report of the government forces’ advance in Sukkari – that the rebels controlled an enclave of only 2.5 square km (1 square mile).

RAPID ADVANCES

The evacuation plan was the culmination of two weeks of rapid advances by the Syrian army and its allies that drove insurgents back into an ever-smaller pocket of the city under intense air strikes and artillery fire.

By taking control of Aleppo, Assad has proved the power of his military coalition, aided by Russia’s air force and an array of Shi’ite militias from across the region.

Rebels have been backed by the United States, Turkey and Gulf monarchies, but that support has fallen far short of the direct military assistance given to Assad by Russia and Iran.

Russia’s decision to deploy its air force to Syria more than a year ago turned the war in Assad’s favor after rebel advances across western Syria. In addition to Aleppo, he has won back insurgent strongholds near Damascus this year.

The government and its allies have focused the bulk of their firepower on fighting rebels in western Syria rather than Islamic State, which this week managed to take back the ancient city of Palmyra, once again illustrating the challenge Assad faces reestablishing control over all Syria.

(Reporting by Laila Bassam in Aleppo and Tom Perry, John Davison and Lisa Barrington in Beirut, Michelle Martin in Berlin; Writing by Angus McDowall in Beirut and Giles Elgood in London, editing by Peter Millership)

Kurdistan Workers Party claim responsibility for Istanbul attack that killed 38

Wreaths, placed by representatives of foreign missions, are pictured at the scene of Saturday's blasts in Istanbul, Turkey

By David Dolan and Tuvan Gumrukcu

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – An offshoot of the militant Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) claimed responsibility on Sunday for twin bombings that killed 38 people and wounded 155 outside an Istanbul soccer stadium, an attack for which the Turkish government vowed vengeance.

The Kurdistan Freedom Hawks (TAK), which has claimed several other deadly attacks in Turkey this year, said in a statement on its website that it was behind Saturday night’s blasts, which shook a nation still trying to recover from a failed military coup and a number of bombings this year..

Saturday’s attacks took place near the Vodafone Arena, home to Istanbul’s Besiktas soccer team, about two hours after a match at the stadium and appeared to target police officers. The first was a car bomb outside the stadium, followed within a minute by a suicide bomb attack in an adjacent park.

TAK, which has claimed responsibility for an Ankara bombing that killed 37, is an offshoot of the PKK, which has carried out a violent, three-decade insurgency, mainly in Turkey’s largely Kurdish southeast.

“What we must focus on is this terror burden. Our people should have no doubt we will continue our battle against terror until the end,” Turkey President Tayyip Erdogan told reporters after meeting injured victims in an Istanbul hospital.

The daughter of police officer Hasim Usta who was killed in Saturday's blasts (C), prays during a funeral ceremony in

The daughter of police officer Hasim Usta who was killed in Saturday’s blasts (C), prays during a funeral ceremony in Istanbul, Turkey, December 12, 2016. REUTERS/Osman Orsal

‘WE WILL HAVE VENGEANCE’

Speaking at a funeral for five of the police officers at the Istanbul police headquarters, Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said: “Sooner or later we will have our vengeance. This blood will not be left on the ground, no matter what the price, what the cost.”

Soylu also warned those who would offer support to the attackers on social media or elsewhere; comments aimed at pro-Kurdish politicians the government accuses of having links to the PKK, which is designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, Europe and Turkey.

In recent months thousands of Kurdish politicians have been detained, including dozens of mayors and the leaders of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), parliament’s second-biggest opposition party, accused of having links to the PKK.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, former prime minister Ahmet Davutoglu and Energy Minister Berat Albayrak attend a funeral ceremony for police officer Hasim Usta who was killed in Saturday's blasts, in Istanbul, Turkey,

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, former prime minister Ahmet Davutoglu and Energy Minister Berat Albayrak attend a funeral ceremony for police officer Hasim Usta who was killed in Saturday’s blasts, in Istanbul, Turkey, December 12, 2016. REUTERS/Osman Orsal

The crackdown against Kurdish politicians has coincided with widespread purges of state institutions after July’s failed coup, which the government blames on followers of a U.S.-based Muslim cleric.

Turkey says the measures are necessary to defend its security, while rights groups and some Western allies accuse it of skirting the rule of law and trampling on freedoms.

In a statement, the pro-Kurdish HDP condemned the attack and urged the government to end what it called the language and politics of “polarization, hostility and conflict”.

Soylu said that the first explosion was at an assembly point for riot police. The second came as police surrounded the suicide bomber in the nearby Macka park.

Thirty-eight people died, including 30 police and seven civilians, he said. One person remained unidentified.

Thirteen people have been detained in connection with the attacks, Soylu said.

A total of 155 people were being treated in hospital, with 14 of them in intensive care and five in surgery, Health Minister Recep Akdag told a news conference.

Flags flew at half-mast and Sunday was declared a day of national mourning.

Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus said that Turkey’s allies should show solidarity with it in the fight against terrorism, a reference to disagreements with the United States over the fellow NATO member’s policy on Syria. Washington backs the Syrian Kurdish YPG in the fight against Islamic State. Turkey, meanwhile, says the militia is an extension of the PKK and a terrorist group.

In addition to the Kurdish insurgency, Turkey is battling Islamic State as a member of the United States-led coalition against the jihadist group. Less than a week ago Islamic State urged its supporters to target Turkey’s “security, military, economic and media establishment”.

‘MY SON WAS MASSACRED’

Video purporting to show the father of one of the victims, a 19-year-old medical student in Istanbul for a weekend visit, went viral on social media in Turkey.

“I don’t want my son to be a martyr, my son was massacred,” the footage showed the father saying. “His goal was to be a doctor and help people like this, but now I am carrying him back in a funeral car.”

Security remained tight in Istanbul, with police helicopters buzzing overhead in the Besiktas district near the stadium.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg condemned what he described as “horrific acts of terror”, while European leaders also sent messages of solidarity. German Chancellor Angela Merkel called Erdogan to convey her condolences, sources in his office said.

The United States condemned the attack and said it stood with its NATO ally.

(Additional reporting by Orhan Coskun, Ece Toksabay, Umit Bektas and Gulsen Solaker in Ankara, Humeyra Pamuk, Osman Orsal and Murad Sezer in Istanbul; Editing by Andrew Heavens, Dale Hudson and David Goodman)

Islamic State urges supporters to stage new wave of attacks

Islamic State flag

CAIRO (Reuters) – A newly identified spokesman for Islamic State urged sympathizers around the world to carry out a fresh wave of attacks, singling out Turkish diplomatic, military and financial interests as the Islamists’ preferred targets.

Abi al-Hassan al-Muhajer, whose role as the group’s mouthpiece was disclosed for the first time on Monday, also told Islamic State fighters to stand their ground in the town of Tal Afar, where they are threatened by Iraqi forces bearing down on the city of Mosul, the group’s last major Iraqi stronghold.

In a defiant online message, Muhajer described Islamic State’s military losses this year as setbacks and said an array of forces in Iraq and Syria had failed to defeat the jihadists.

He said Islamic State supporters would target “the secular, apostate Turkish government in every security, military, economic and media establishment, including every embassy and consulate, that represents it in all countries of the world.”

“Destroy their vehicles, raid them … in their shelters so they can taste some of your misery and do not talk yourselves into fleeing,” Muhajer said in an audio recording posted online.

He called on supporters of Islamic State to “redouble your efforts and step up your operations” around the world.

It was not immediately possible to verify the authenticity of the recording.

Islamic State identified Muhajer as its new media spokesman in a recording posted on Al Furqan, a media outlet linked to the group. It gave little information about Muhajer, an obscure figure not widely known in the media or to experts.

The United States confirmed in September that Islamic State’s previous spokesman, Abu Mohammad al-Adnani, had been killed in a U.S. air strike on Aug. 30 in Syria.

Turkey appeared to have been chosen as a target because it has backed rebels in Syria against Islamic State, threatening to drive IS fighters from the town of al-Bab and backing rebels who crossed into Syria and took the border town of Jarablus from the jihadists. Most recently, Turkish warplanes destroyed 12 Islamic State targets on Saturday.

(Reporting by Ali Abdelaty and Asma Alsharif; Writing by Lin Noueihed; Editing by Giles Elgood)