“Turkey is continuing to fire heavy artillery shells at Syrian villages near the border,” Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said.
The Russian Defense Ministry called on Amnesty International to assess the situation on the Turkish-Syrian border.
“Turkish heavy artillery is shelling settlements on the border. Instead of making groundless allegations that [Russia] is carrying out haphazard airstrikes, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Doctors Without Borders should make a formal assessment of the Turkish Armed Forces’ criminal actions,” said Konashenkov.
According to the spokesman, the fact that Western media and human rights organizations are turning a blind eye to this situation is “surprising, to say the least.”
Earlier, Konashenkov said that the Russian Defense Ministry has new evidence of Turkey shelling Syrian settlements accross the border.
On February 13,
Turkish artillery began shellingpositions held by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), a Kurdish group with links to the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), in Syria’s Aleppo Province.
In response to criticism over Turkey’s unilateral and illegitimate cross-border shelling of northern Syria, Recep Erdogan claimed that “nobody can limit Turkey in using its legitimate right of self-defense.”
Turkey believes that the Kurds in Syria have ties to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a group considered a terrorist organization by Ankara, which fights for Kurdish independence from Turkey.
