ERBIL, Kurdistan Region -- Two Turkish soldiers were killed in the Syrian northwestern province of Idilb on Thursday, just two weeks after a ceasefire was imposed by Ankara and Moscow to halt months of fighting.
Mahir Unal, deputy leader of Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) said in a tweet on Thursday that a Turkish soldier, Oguz Tas, was killed in a "heinous attack" in Muhambal town in Idlib.
He did not indicate who was behind the attack.
Minutes later, Sivas governor’s office tweeted that Ramazan Nayor, a 25-year-old soldier, was also killed in Idlib, without saying who was responsible.
The two deaths are the first reported Turkish casualties since the ceasefire was imposed at the beginning of the month.
Turkey's defense ministry confirmed the deaths late Thursday, saying that they were killed as the result of "an attack by radical groups" in Idlib.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin agreed on a ceasefire in the last rebel bastion of Idlib on March 5. It was aimed at halting fire between the Turkish-backed rebels and Turkey on one side, and Syrian regime forces and their allied groups on the other.
Despite small-scale clashes, the ceasefire has managed to bring a rare calm to the embattled province. Scores of fighters from both sides were killed in the weeks leading up to the ceasefire, including nearly 60 soldiers – to which Ankara responded with the deployment of thousands more troops to Idlib to conduct attacks against Syrian regime forces.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported the shelling of Syrian regime forces by Turkish forces on Thursday in the southern part of the province.
Backed by Russian air power, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces launched an extensive offensive against pro-Turkey rebels and their allied jihadists in Idlib and Aleppo provinces in December, retaking more than a hundred towns and villages it lost to them since 2011.
The March 5 ceasefire seeks the suspension of clashes in Idlib and other surrounding areas, the conduct of joint patrols on the strategic cross-country M4 highway, and establishment of a “safe corridor” 6 km north and south of the M4.
Assad has previously praised the ceasefire, while Putin and Erdogan have hailed the “significant decrease” of tensions in the province.
