The Russian Coordination centre for reconciliation of opposing sides on the territory of the Syrian Arab Republic held a press conference on the latest developments in the region and the Turkish state’s use of refugees as a tool to blackmail Europe to receive support for its Idlib operation.

Head of the Coordination Center in Syria which is affiliated to the Russian Defense Ministry, Oleg Juravlyov denounced the Turkish state’s crime of demographic change in northeastern Syria.

The Russian official stated that the Turkish state has displaced 250,000 Kurds from Afrin and 135,000 from Serekaniye (Ras al-Ain) and Gire Spi (Tal Abyad), in whose place Turkmens were settled afterwards.

Juravlyov pointed out that the ‘Operation Peace Spring’ caused the displacement of over 135,000 people, majority of them Kurds, from their ancestral lands, while as many as 250,000 people - mainly Kurds- were displaced from Afrin during the ‘Operation Olive Branch’.

Juravlyov said that the Turkish government has forcibly settled Turkmens in these areas, noting that this resulted in a fundamental change in the ethnicity of the affected regions.

Juravlyov refuted “the reports of Turkey, US and European countries directed against Russia and Syria that the deteriorating situation in the Idlib de-escalation zone has resulted in an influx of millions of refugees and there is a “humanitarian crisis” in the region”.