Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Thursday that Ankara and Damascus should discuss the issue of Kurdish forces in northeastern Syria directly, calling Turkey’s cross-border assault a product of US policies.
“We will strive for the necessity of dialogue between Turkey and Syria,” he said.
Turkey has “legitimate concerns about the safety of its borders” but had not been able to properly raise them with Damascus as this was “made difficult by the actions of the Americans and the coalition” east of the Euphrates river, he said.
“We have warned for many years about the danger of the experiment that the Americans were staging there in an effort to pit the Kurds against Arab tribes,” Lavrov told journalists.
“We warned against playing the Kurdish card because it can end badly,” he said.
Kurdish forces controlling parts of north Syria said they repulsed Turkish ground attacks on Wednesday and Thursday, but the Turkish defence ministry insisted its “Operation Peace Spring” would go ahead to curb the power of Kurdish insurgents.