Russia's Interfax news agency has quoted Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu as saying that Ankara is ready for talks with Russia but will not allow Moscow to impose its will.
"Russia needs to understand one thing, this is a border between Turkey and Syria and those who are on the other side of the border are our brothers. Defending their rights is our obligation, just as defending our citizens is our obligation," Davutoglu told local media today, according to Interfax.
Davutoglu was likely referring to Syrian Turkomans, ethnic Turks living in northern Syria. Turkey accused Russia of bombing Turkoman rebel groups along the Syrian-Turkish border shortly before the November 24 downing by the Turkish air force of a Russian Su-24 jet.
On December 4, Turkish media reported that Russia had begun targeting the Turkoman region of Bayırbucak in northern Syria, with sources telling the Daily Sabah news site that Russia had hit eight different positions around Syria's Mount Turkmen including Karamanlı, Gebere and Kinsibbe villages.
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Turkey Rejects Baghdad's Demand To Withdraw Troops From Northern Iraq
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu has told the Iraqi government that Ankara will not withdraw its ground troops from northern Iraq for now.
Cavusoglu made the remarks in a phone call to Iraqi Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari on December 8, just hours after Baghdad's deadline for a Turkish withdrawal expired.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi has said Turkish troops entered Iraq without permission and warned that Baghdad would seek UN Security Council action if those forces did not start to withdraw by the end of December 7.
Cavusoglu said Ankara sent military forces near the city Mosul on December 3 to protect and replace Turkish soldiers already deployed there.
Turkey says its soldiers are training Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga and Sunni Arab tribal fighters around Mosul ahead of an expected offensive aimed at taking the city back from the Islamic State militants who have occupied the city since the summer of 2014.
On December 7, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told Abadi in a letter that Ankara would halt further deployments into Iraq until Baghdad's "sensitivities" were placated.
Turkey has halted the deployment of troops to northern Iraq for the time being but will not withdraw those already there, Turkey's Foreign Ministry said today, Today's Zaman reports.
Analyst Michael Horowitz has tweeted this image of the Eagles of Death Metal band in front of the Bataclan theater in Paris today, paying their respects to the victims of the November 13 Paris attacks.
Campaign rhetoric in the United States is harming an important U.S. resettlement program for Syrian refugees, the United Nations refugee agency warned today.
Asked about remarks by Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump, who yesterday called for a ban on Muslims entering the United States, UNCHR spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said Trump was "speaking of an entire population but this also impacts the refugee program."
"Our refugee program is religion-blind. Our resettlement program selects the people who are most at need," Fleming told a news briefing in Geneva.
Members of the California rock band Eagles of Death Metal have visited the Paris venue where they survived a terrorist attack by suicide bombers.
The band came today to the Bataclan theater in eastern Paris where 89 people were killed inside on November 13. The band members escaped the massacre by hiding in a dressing room.
Egypt's Ambassador to Russia, Mohamed El-Badri, has said that his country will continue to investigate for as long as needed the causes of the crash of a Russian passenger plane in Sinai on October 31, RIA Novosti reports.
IS claimed responsibility for the disaster, saying that its local affiliate planted a bomb made from a soft drink can on board the flight.
El-Badri told RIA Novosti today that various parties are involved in the investigation, including Russia, Egypt, and the airplane manufacturer.
Syria's political and armed opposition factions are meeting today in Saudi Arabia for a conference aimed at pursuing peace talks.
Representatives are expected to attempt to agree a common position from which to negotiate with Bashar al-Assad's government.
The IS group has -- of course -- not been invited. Neither has Syria's powerful Al-Qaeda affiliate, the Al-Nusra Front. The Syrian Kurds, who control swathes of northern Syria, have also not been invited.
The BBC says that the ultraconservative Salafist Islamist rebel group Ahrar al-Sham, which aims to build an Islamic state in Syria after ousting Assad, is attending. Ahrar al-Sham is part of the powerful Jaish al-Fatah rebel alliance that includes the Al-Nusra Front.
Jaish al-Islam, another Islamist rebel group that operates mostly around Damascus, is also attending. So is the moderate Southern Front alliance.
There is a growing disconnect between Washington and Baghdad in the U.S.-led coalition's fight against the IS group in Iraq, AP reports.
The growing split has been highglighted by the series of rows over foreign forces on Iraqi soil, AP says, including the outrage this week from Baghdad over media reports that Turkish troops were deploying to a base outside IS-controlled Mosul in northern Iraq.
"In truth, a few hundred Turkish trainers have been present in Iraq for months, working to train Kurdish peshmerga fighters and Sunni militiamen. Their presence, while not publicly advertised, appears to have been done in coordination with both Baghdad and the semi-autonomous Kurdish regional government in Iraq's north," AP points out.
Most children living in IS-controlled Raqqa do not go to school, the Syria Direct news website reports.
Syria Direct has interviewed Hamoud al-Mousa of the activist group Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently, who says that children in Raqqa have few options.
"Most stay inside all day as their families prevent them from going outdoors out of fear for their lives. Those who do go out do so to work or sell different items to earn money for the family. Also, many children have pledged allegiance to IS out of this necessity," Mousa said.