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Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday threatened to launch an operation in Syria’s Idlib region by the end of the month if Damascus fails to withdraw behind Turkish military positions, the local sources reported.

“An operation in Idlib is imminent,” Erdogan told his party’s lawmakers in parliament. “We are counting down, we are making our final warnings”.

Russia – the Syrian government’s main ally in the nine-year war – responded by saying any Turkish offensive against Syrian forces in Idlib would be a “worst case scenario”.

Ankara, which supports several Syrian rebel groups in Syria’s northwest, has been outraged since recent Syrian attacks in Idlib province killed 13 Turkish troops in two weeks, the news agencies reported.

Erdogan said talks with Russia on the Idlib region were far from meeting Turkey’s demands, and warned a military operation was just a “matter of time”.