UN Security Council to meet Friday on Syria: diplomats

The UN Security Council is to hold emergency talks Friday on the escalation of fighting in Syria, diplomats said, after 33 Turkish soldiers were killed in a Syrian air raid.

The meeting is expected to begin at 2100 GMT, the acting chairman of the council, Belgian ambassador Marc Pecsteen de Buytswerve, told reporters.

He said it was requested by the United States, Germany, Britain, France, Belgium, Estonia, and the Dominican Republic -- some of which have stated publicly that they support Turkey.

After the attack by the Russian-backed regime in the battleground Idlib province late Thursday, Turkish reprisals killed 20 Syrian soldiers there and in neighbouring Aleppo, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

On Wednesday nine members of the Security Council asked Secretary General Antonio Guterres to do more to press for a ceasefire in Idlib.

Germany even asked him to travel there but he declined, saying it might be counterproductive and alienate Russia, diplomats said.

Since late 2019 Russia has been supporting a Syrian drive to take control of Idlib, the last stronghold of rebels fighting the Damascus government.

Since the war in Syria began in 2011, the council has often struggled to come up with meaningful action to stop it.

Russia has used its veto power 14 times to kill resolutions aimed at halting military offensives or to limit humanitarian operations that did not have the approval of the Syrian government.