MOSCOW, October 16. /TASS/: Moscow hopes that the scale of Turkey’s operation in Syria will be proportionate to the task of maintaining security, Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the media.
"We respect Turkey’s right to take measures to maintain its own security, but we expect that the operation [in Syria] will be proportionate to the task of maintaining security," he said.
Peskov recalled that in Tuesday’s conversation between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan the Russian leader expressed the hope the operation in Turkey would not harm the political settlement process in Syria.
Asked how long Turkey’s operation might last Peskov replied: "It is hard to say anything about the timeframe."
On October 9, Turkey launched a military operation codenamed Peace Spring in northern Syria. It began with air strikes against Kurdish forces. The aim of the operation is to create a buffer zone to protect the Turkish border. Ankara believes that Syrian refugees might return from Turkey there.
The official Syrian news agency SANA slammed the operation as aggression. The international community criticized Ankara. In the evening of October 13 SANA said that Damascus had dispatched army units to the North to offer resistance to the Turkish army.
