Idlib

Russia and Turkey are on the verge of an armed conflict in the Syrian province of Idlib, according to US Department of Defense official Jonathan Hoffman. At the same time, the Pentagon hopes that direct confrontation and hostilities between the two countries in Syria will be avoided, EA Daily reports.

Moscow strongly opposes the operation, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, adding that Russia and Ankara remain in touch to try to prevent further escalation of tensions in Idlib, Reuters reported.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is seeking to ensure a humanitarian catastrophe does not befall northwest Syria's Idlib province, U.S. President Donald Trump said on Feb. 18.

"He's fighting on Idlib," Trump told reporters before boarding Air Force One. "He doesn't want people to be killed by the thousands, and hundreds of thousands."

Russian and Turkish delegations held two-day consultations in Moscow on Feb. 17-18, aiming to ease the tense situation in the Syrian province of Idlib.

The U.N.'s humanitarian affairs chief called on Feb. 17 for an immediate ceasefire to be implemented in northwest Syria to prevent "the biggest humanitarian horror story of the 21st Century."

U.S. President Donald Trump thanked Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan by phone for preventing a "humanitarian catastrophe" in northwestern Syria's Idlib province, the White House said on Feb. 16.

Turkish and Russian delegations are set to meet in Moscow on February 17 amid escalated tension in the Syrian province of Idlib where the Turkish and Syrian military forces pit against each other with concerns of fresh armed conflicts between the two.

A Syrian opposition group reported on Feb. 14 that they downed a Syrian regime helicopter in a "de-escalation zone" in northwest Syria.

The helicopter was hit directly while flying over the western Aleppo province, in a rural area of Aleppo that falls within the de-escalation zone of the neighboring province of Idlib.

Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu will attend the Munich Security Conference 2020, where he will meet Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov amid escalation in Syria's Idlib province, Kremlin announced.

As the Syrian war approaches its ninth year, half of the 22 million population has been displaced and more than six million of them had to leave the country.

In the south of the Idlib province, hundreds of thousands of people were displaced from their homes due to bombings and attacks carried out by the regime.