Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has described the chances of normal diplomatic relations with neighboring Turkey as remote, stressing that such an ideal cannot be achieved as long as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan supports Takfiri militant groups and is under the heavy influence of Egypt’s so-called Muslim Brotherhood movement.

As tensions are escalating in Syria’s northwestern province of Idlib, the last militant bastion in a nine-year war, Turkey is attempting to hold its grip over the flashpoint region through tens of thousands of militants it supports.

The Russian Center for Reconciliation of the Opposing Sides in Syria says a group of foreign-sponsored Takfiri militants sought to explode several containers with toxic substances in the strategic Saraqib city of the country’s northwestern province of Idlib in a bid to incriminate Syrian government forces as a pretext for possible acts of aggression on army troops.

An American political analyst says the US government labels people and nations opposed to its imperialistic policies as “terrorists”.

Russia’s Defense Ministry on Friday said reports that hundreds of thousands of Syrians were fleeing Idlib in the direction of Turkey were false and urged Ankara to stop supporting terrorists in Syria.

Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani has expressed Tehran’s support for the Syrian government’s efforts to combat terrorism, saying the United States and some regional countries covertly assist terrorists in their atrocities.

Syrian government forces intercepted and shot down an unmanned aerial vehicle operated by foreign-sponsored Takfiri terrorists as it was flying in the skies close to a major refinery in the country’s central province of Homs.

President Bashar al-Assad said the countries hostile to the Syrian people are still trying to protect terrorists who take civilians as hostages and human shields, stressing that this cannot be allowed to continue.

Security forces in Egypt have killed at least 17 terrorists in a shootout in the North African country’s restive region of Sinai Peninsula.

The Syrian government has strongly condemned Turkey’s deployment of more military reinforcements to militant-held areas in the country’s embattled northern provinces of Idlib and Aleppo, emphasizing that such actions will fail to save terrorist groups that are targeting civilians in the war-ravaged Arab country.

Syria’s Army, backed by allied forces from popular defense groups, managed to establish full control over a strategic region in the southern countryside of the country’s northern province of Aleppo from the Al-Qaeda-linked terrorists.

Iran’s Parliament passed a bill on Tuesday designating all US forces ‘terrorists’ over the assassination of Lt. General Qassem Soleimani.

Syrian government forces have captured and dismantled an unmanned aerial vehicle rigged with explosives in the country’s west-central province of Hama.

Syrian government military troops have liberated more areas in the northwestern province of Idlib from the grip of foreign-sponsored Takfiri militants, as they are tightening the noose around the extremists operating in the region.

Militants from the Kurdish-led and so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have reportedly transferred dozens of children born to Daesh Takfiri terrorists from a refugee camp in Syria’s northeastern province of Hasakah to their own training camp.