Tensions in Syria's Idlib de-escalation zone exploded earlier this month after a Syrian artillery strike hit a Turkish observation post, killing several Turkish troops and prompting threats of a full-scale response by Ankara.
“The best option” which doesn't involve direct US military intervention in Syria would be a “safe zone” “located on the Syrian side of the Turkish border that is defended by Turkish artillery, missile, and antiaircraft systems located on the Turkish side of the border,” Robert Ford, former US ambassador to Syria has written.
In an op-ed in foreign Affairs, Ford, who served as US envoy to Syria from 2010 to 2014, and who helped incite the protests against the Assad government which later turned violent, cited the dreadful humanitarian situation in Idlib. He suggested that if the Syrian Army “captured” the region's civilians it would arrest or simply kill them. “When Assad's forces reach the Turkish border, the grim fate of the refugees will be sealed unless Turkey allows them to cross,” he warned.
Praising Turkey's operations in Syria, Ford claimed that Ankara was simply “unable to absorb another wave of refugees of this scale,” and argued the only thing that may be holding it back from a full-scale offensive against Damascus is the “Russian warplanes [that] control the skies over western Syria.”
Under his ‘safe zone' concept, Ford suggests…
