The clock has started ticking in Idlib; Russia must now decide what it wants

The attack by Syrian regime forces on Turkish soldiers and the martyrdom of 8 troops is, from whichever angle you look at it, a breaking point that will cause all the cards in the Syrian question to be dealt anew. The Turkish soldiers who were martyred were trying to reinforce the observation posts in the de-escalation zones of Idlib that had been agreed upon among Turkey, Iran, Russia and the regime in the Astana and Sochi processes. In other words, the regime forces and Russia had for some time made violating this understanding in Idlib into a new gain, and were trying to render the function of Turkey's observation posts null and void.

Turkey, for its part, saw this attempt to void the understanding by presenting it with a fait accompli, and objected to it.

Frankly, the attacks that the regime forces had been carrying out for some time in Idlib, accompanied, supported and protected by Russian forces, were first and foremost insolent moves that disregarded all the diplomatic efforts that had been under way in Astana and Sochi and openly violated them.

In Syria, as in many areas, Turkey in fact followed to the very end its policy of giving a chance to a political solution with Russia, with Iran and with the Syrian regime alike. In Syria there is a criminal, massacring regime that has caused 12 million of its own people to migrate inside or outside the country. The only way this regime knows to deal with its opponents is to slaughter them, deport them, and bring their homes down on their heads. This criminal regime, which should have no place in this world, unfortunately still stands thanks to the open support of Russia and Iran.

As a matter of fact, although Russia and Iran are the chief culprits of the humanitarian tragedy of the century unfolding in Syria, Turkey sat down with them at the table in Astana and Sochi in an effort to stop the bloodshed in Syria. Some developed a very urgent expectation that this search would amount to a new alliance, a new international axis. Yet, as in general, Turkey's fundamental priority in this matter was the humanitarian side of the issue.

The Syrian people did not ask much of Assad; they only wanted to live humanely. Assad, who thought even this too much for his own people, tried to subject even those who made so modest a demand to genocide. The product of this cruelty is plain: 12 million people uprooted from their homes, a million victims, millions wounded, detained and missing.

Turkey's stance against these practices was very clear, but it was blamed for it. It was accused of taking sides in the clashes in Syria. Yet the only side Turkey took was humanity.

If what has happened in Idlib since the Astana process is no lesson even to those who, at this hour, advise Turkey to come to terms with the blood-stained Assad, then their hearts are sealed and their embers have turned black.

In the Astana process Turkey in fact agreed with Russia and Iran, who most openly protected the regime, on bringing Syria under control and moving toward a more political solution with the opposition. In the face of all the massacres and the war that took place, it was also agreed that the opposition in Syria is a right that can no longer be debated and that those who rebelled against the regime cannot be counted as terrorists. Since the regime's cruelty and brutality are an open fact, rebelling against it is also a right, and no one can be blamed for exercising this right. On the contrary, the one that should be blamed in the first place is the regime that uses the resources of the state as an apparatus of slaughter against its own defenseless citizens.

Besides, if there is such a mass exodus from a country, those who leave take with them the legitimacy and the rightness of that regime as well. Today at least 8 million Syrians outside Syria bear witness that in their country there is not a state but a murderous, terrorist structure.

Russia and the regime were carrying out their attacks in Idlib clinging to the pretext that there were terrorist activities, but meanwhile schools, hospitals and bakeries were being bombed from the air and civilians were dying. Because of these attacks at least one million people are being forced to migrate from this region toward the Turkish border. If things continue this way, Idlib, like the other regions of Syria, will be seized after being completely emptied of people, but those swept out of here will have been loaded onto Turkey's responsibility.

Turning the fight against terror into a genocide against an entire civilian population is a crime against humanity in itself, while the violation of the agreements with Turkey is a separate crime.

It is evident that for Russia there are no people, there are simply breathing machines. For establishing dominance in a region, the deaths of people, their migration, the terrible dramas arising from them are of no importance whatsoever. One sees how dangerous that chilling coldbloodedness has become for humanity. It has neither much time nor patience to establish control. If there is an opponent hidden among thousands of people in front of it, it can, if need be, destroy those thousands as well in order to eliminate him. It has resolved to kill however many hundreds of thousands of people it takes to establish control in Syria.

Yet the bill for the inhuman practices they resort to in order to fight the opponents they call terrorists by their own standards is paid by the civilian population and by Turkey. They themselves pay no price at all.

The images of one million civilians, women and children, pressed up against Turkey's borders are the proof that what is going on is not a fight against terror but a savage genocide.

Turkey could no longer remain a spectator to this. And it will not. The clock has started ticking.