This article is more than 6 months old

This article is more than 6 months old

Tensions in north-west Syria continued to escalate on Saturday after another Turkish soldier was killed in a bomb attack by Russian-backed government forces.

Turkey’s 16th military death in Idlib province came as fighting has intensified, huge numbers of people have been displaced, and talks between Ankara and Moscow have stalled.

Shortly after news of the latest casualty was confirmed, the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, announced that he would meet both Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, and the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, next month to discuss the situation in Idlib.

However, the death triggered a bitter round of retaliation as Turkish forces destroyed 21 “regime targets”, the country’s defence ministry said.

Turkey has dispatched thousands of troops and equipment to north-west Syria, just south of its border, to head off a crushing offensive in recent weeks by the Russia-backed forces of the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, who is attempting to retake the rebel-held territory after nine years of war.

Erdoğan recently vowed to take military action “everywhere in Syria” if another Turkish soldier was killed or wounded.

Turkey, which hosts 3.7 million Syrian refugees already, has said it cannot handle another wave of displaced people and has shut its borders, even while the Syrian offensive and Russian air raids have caused nearly a million people – mostly women and children – to flee the fighting since early December.

The rising number of military casualties, including two on Thursday, could derail Ankara’s talks with Moscow over a potential deal to halt the fighting.

The United Nations has warned continued combat operations in Idlib could “end in a bloodbath” and has urged a ceasefire. The latest Syrian offensive has prompted the biggest civilian exodus in a civil war that has killed an estimated 400,000 Syrians, displaced millions more, and left much of the country in ruins.