MODERATOR: And you guys all know [Senior State Department Official] very well, so I’ll let him go ahead and start so we can get into it.

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Okay, thank you very much.

QUESTION: Embargoed?

MODERATOR: Embargoed until the end, so please don’t tweet out.

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: We’ve all talked before about the dangers and the significance of the conflict in Syria, from the terrorist threat to the massive refugee threat to the destruction of the country, the killing of over 400,000 Syrians, mainly civilians, to the threat of great power conflict. And right now we’re facing a very dangerous situation despite many, many warnings from us, from the international community. The Russians have been supporting a win-the-war offensive by the Assad regime in Idlib against the remaining opposition forces, violating the 2018 Sochi ceasefire agreement between Turkey and Russia, which was then subsequently endorsed by Merkel and Macron when they gathered in Istanbul at the end of October with Erdogan and Putin.

So this is pretty significant. We have seen a great deal of conventional fighting, very heavy casualties including, tragically, some 33 Turkish soldiers killed and – even great number wounded on one of the fronts by a strike we believe that was by the Syrian air force or Syrian army ballistic missiles. We’re still checking on that. Where we are now is, of course, the Turks, for good reason and with the support of the international community, have turned to the UN. There’s going to be a Security Council meeting, if not underway right now, happen soon – or is it going to be tomorrow? Four o’clock. The North Atlantic Council of NATO met this morning. The general thrust is strong solidarity for Turkey. Again, this is coming on the heels of a whole set of steps since September for the international community, seeing what’s going on in Idlib, seeing the risk of three and a half million refugees being pushed into Turkey and perhaps beyond, has shown ever-stronger – has sent ever-stronger signals that they’re extremely unhappy with Russia and Syria.

You have the secretary-general’s board of inquiry is going to be coming out soon on deliberate targeting of UN-identified safe zones in Idlib. The secretary-general himself has spoken out on this. You have 14 European Union foreign ministers that published an editorial in Le Monde on Wednesday attacking both Assad and the Russians. The Russians are getting fingered by this. The secretary-general very disappointed in the outcome of the January renewal of the border crossings, one of the few humanitarian things we can do for the Syrian people. The Russians blocked two of the four humanitarian crossings into essentially non-regime areas and made it clear that they wanted this to end six months from now. The secretary-general was tasked to comment on this and come up with ways we can get assistance into the northeast. He took a very strong position in a public report he issued earlier this week essentially condemning the idea of such humanitarian aid traveling through Assad’s lines into the other side, and recommending that there be a new crossing in the northeast.

So that’s the background to this. I think you all saw that the two presidents, President Trump and President Erdogan, spoke this morning about the crisis. And let me cite from the readout the things that are takeaways, and I’ve gotten more information on this – and this is consistent for once. First of all, for once you’ll notice the Turkish readout and the American readout, although different, are the same, which is not often the case. Secondly, these readouts reflect what was discussed. We expressed our condolences and we condemned the Russian and Syrian attack. We reiterated our support for Turkey’s efforts to de-escalate the situation in northwest Syria – that is, we are pitching the Turkish military action as an effort to de-escalate, to return to this September 2008 and avoid a humanitarian catastrophe. That’s very high in the President’s mind, including our need to provide a lot of humanitarian assistance. We’ll have more on that for public consumption in the days ahead. And the two leaders agreed that the Syrian regime, Russia, and the Iranian regime must halt their offensive before more innocent civilians are killed and displaced.

So that’s where we are right now. We’re working on ways to support the Turks. Again, this will not involve military moves by American units. The Turks have a large and very effective, as we’re seeing on the battlefield, military force. There are ways we can support them. There are ways we’ve supported other allies and operating at times against Syria. I won’t get into the details. As a NATO ally, we have – and as a major foreign military sales partner, we have various information sharing and equipment relationships with the Turks. We’re looking at what we can do on an urgent basis right now to help them. As I’ve said, we’re also looking at what we can do for the humanitarian situation, but diplomatically we want to see this thing stopped and we want to see a overall ceasefire as called for in December 2015’s 2254 resolution. We want to see this conflict – this terrible conflict – moved from the battlefield to the negotiating table.

I’ll stop there.

MODERATOR: Question – Shaun.

QUESTION: Thanks for doing this. Could you explain a bit – you mentioned the attack that killed the Turkish forces. I understand that you attributed it to the Syrian regime. How confident are you —

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: The Turks have attributed it.

QUESTION: (Off-mike.)

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: I have not seen anything that would be definitive independent of the Turks on who did this.

QUESTION: So that’s my question. What level of responsibility does Russia bear for this?

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Russia is responsible for this offensive, period. Maybe I wasn’t clear. Russia is responsible for this offensive, period. The idea of the laughable, pathetic, key-hauled draftee Assad military forces fighting the Turks and some of the opposition forces, including some tough – we don’t like them – HTS, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, is laughable. It’s Russian air power – Su-24s to be specific – that carpet-bomb and, to the extent they can get close enough, target enemy positions that have allowed the Assad regime to go forward.

This regime would not have been able to launch this without approval all the way to the top. You’ll remember in January Putin came to Damascus. He – it is unfair to say he met with Assad. From what happened, it was more Assad was trundled out to go to Putin’s military headquarters to meet with Putin, and apparently that’s when Putin took the decision that he would support this. At every level, every military action, seemingly however minor, is coordinated by Russian commanders and Syrian commanders.

QUESTION: Just a brief clarification: Does that mean that this incident in which the Turkish forces were killed would have had to have Russian coordination?

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: It – I cannot – first of all, I cannot attribute whose – as a general rule, there is very close coordination of any kind of we would call it strategic air or missile strikes between the two. Whether that was the case this time, I don’t know, but we have seen this repeatedly and it is the usual case.

QUESTION: Can I just clarify, because I’m really confused. Are you saying that yesterday’s offensive is responsible – you said Russia is responsible for this offensive, period. Is that specific to yesterday’s strikes?

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: That’s – no.

QUESTION: Okay.

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: The overall offensive, the decision to violate the Sochi agreement on the threadbare excuse that there’s terrorists there and they’re a threat by launching a I would say six-division-sized attack – although the Syrian divisions tend to be small – with the specific purpose of driving the refugees into Turkey, the ones that aren’t bombed, is something that was coordinated closely with the Russians, would not have occurred not only without Russian permission but without Russian air power. That is the strategic, decisive military tool used by the Assad regime to advance on the ground. Without it, they don’t advance.

QUESTION: Got it. Thanks.

MODERATOR: Yeah. Michael.

QUESTION: [Senior State Department Official], this would seem to be an opportunity to drive a wedge between Russia and Turkey and their emerging or budding relationship, and you mentioned the possibility of providing more support to the Erdogan regime of various kinds.

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Government, please. It’s an elected government. Regime is Assad.

QUESTION: Is the – okay. Are you prepared to put aside, given this crisis that you’re facing now, the S-400 issue and the question of whether it’s to be mothballed or whatever status to be in temporarily so you can support the Turks in this crisis situation in Idlib and with the Russians.

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: We have a very broad and deep relationship with Turkey. As you all here know, it is not always one that is smooth. For the moment, our focus is in supporting Turks on this. We’ve taken no change in our position and principle, which is one supported by the Congress, on the S-400. But again, at the moment, we’re focusing on ways that we can be supportive of the objectives laid out in the President’s debrief.

MODERATOR: Conor.

QUESTION: [Senior State Department Official] you’ve talked about Turkey’s right to self-defense against the Assad regime and Russia. They talk about their resolve to push the Assad forces, the Russian forces out of the areas that they have encroached that were agreed upon in the Sochi agreement. Do you believe in their right to move forward back into those areas and expel Assad forces?

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Oh – go ahead.

QUESTION: And then you talk about urgent steps. The UN says that there’s a $371 million shortfall. Are you considering providing more assistance?

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Yes to the second, and other countries are as well. The British just announced more than 100 million dollar pound humanitarian assistance package. Now some of this stuff – be it ours or others – is somewhere, as you know, in the sausage making of assistance through modern governments. But we’re going to accelerate, announce, and do everything possible to get that aid out.

Our position is – it’s also the position taken by the French Government, Foreign Minister Le Drian earlier today – is that there should be a return to the September 2008 – 2018, rather – ceasefire line. How that is attained, we’re always in favor of a ceasefire negotiations to move those forces back.

But we understand the predicament the Turks are in. You have in a very – now a much smaller area – and I have maps here of how much of that zone – it started off all of this, and now all of the red, other than this that the Turks just taken, is in the hands of the regime. So the Turks and the 3.5 million people that are there are getting pressed ever closer to a very tall chain of mountains that I’ve been up close to and the Turkish border, so that you cannot defend this terrain and you cannot protect those people right on the border.

The Turks have every right to assert a return to the Sochi ceasefire. The Sochi ceasefire is in the context of paragraphs five through eight of Resolution 2254, which calls for individual ceasefires culminating in a nationwide ceasefire. So what they’re asking for is in accordance with the Security Council position on the – ending the Syrian conflict.

MODERATOR: Lara.

QUESTION: Thanks. Have you pursued any direct conversations with the Russians at any level or Secretary Pompeo or others to try to talk to them about Idlib and de-escalation?

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Yes.

QUESTION: And can you speak to that?

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: We won’t get into the details. We have warned them of exactly what has happened in the very recent past. We’re trying to get back to them to see what their position is. But they’ve been tied up, most of our contacts, in negotiations which are going nowhere, of course, in Ankara.

QUESTION: Thank you. You mentioned that you – the U.S. is not considering military support to Turkey. But obviously we know —

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Wait, hold on. We’re not – we have taken no decision to engage with U.S. combat units in this conflict. We obviously provide military support of various types to all of our NATO allies all of the time.

QUESTION: And have they reupped their request for U.S. Patriot missiles? Are you considering that? Have you said no? Have you made saying no to the S-400 a precondition of offering U.S. —

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Well, it’s not a question of preconditions. Right now our Patriots are committed. You know the situation in the Middle East. You know the situation of our interest in getting Patriots into Iraq right now. And there is a NATO Patriot battery at Incirlik as we speak that is guiding the Incirlik base, which is a joint use base that’s commanded by Turks.

QUESTION: Can you not reroute any Patriot batteries elsewhere in Europe?

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Right now we’re focused on the assistance that I’ve talked about.

MODERATOR: Kylie.

QUESTION: You guys – sorry. You said that you haven’t seen an assessment beyond what Turkey has provided on yesterday’s attack.

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Turkey said it was Syrian, I think, aircraft.

QUESTION: Right. So have they asked the U.S. to look into this? And will you be providing an American assessment in terms of what happened, or are you taking Turkey’s word for it?

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Any assessment we get – and we have various ways to try to get our own assessments of things – particularly Idlib, you can imagine, gets a lot of attention – (A) that’s the kind of thing we would share with Turkey and our other NATO allies. Remember, this now is a subject under consideration by the NAC, not under Article 5 but rather under Article 4, which is consultations in a dangerous security situation.

QUESTION: So you do expect there to be a U.S. assessment of what happened yesterday?

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: I’m pretty sure. You can never – I’ve had people come back and say we cannot assess with X amount of confidence who did it. I’ve seen that before. I might see it again. But generally speaking, we get pretty good information.

MODERATOR: Kim.

QUESTION: And do you anticipate —

MODERATOR: Hey, Dan. Dan.

QUESTION: — that’s been shared with Turkey? Sorry, just to follow up.

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: We share a great deal of things with all of our NATO allies, and Turkey is a priority right now.

MODERATOR: All right, Kim.

QUESTION: One of the reports was that it was direct Russian fire that took down a Turkish jet. When does this become something that apply under Article 5?

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: No, a Turkish jet has not been shot down.

QUESTION: Okay. When would this still offensive apply under Article 5 to trigger NATO defense of a NATO ally?

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: That is for, first of all, Turkey to decide. Turkey has not asked for NATO to exercise its Article 5 authorities. As you know, Kim, they were only done once after 9/11, and – but Article 4 is a pretty strong basis for NATO consideration and possible NATO assistance.

MODERATOR: Okay, I think we have time for a couple more maybe. Yeah.

QUESTION: There have been mixed messages out of Turkey about the status of its borders, both on the northwest side and on the European border. So I wonder what is your understanding of whether or not Turkey is thinking about opening its northwest border and letting refugees in, and also the status of what’s happening on the European side.

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: You’d have to ask the Turks on what next steps they would be contemplating on opening the border into Turkey. I have not seen that border opened. I think the Turkish focus right now, as you can see on the map, is to expand their territory and push back to provide a refuge, among other things, for the – they’re not refugees at this point, they’re IDPs.

In terms of the border with Greece or the Aegean, we have seen no significant indication that that border has been opened, nor have we seen an authoritative, definitive official Turkish source state that it would be or has been.

MODERATOR: Okay, last question, Joel.

QUESTION: Thanks for doing this. Just going back to this question of self-defense, do you have any assessment of the – if the Turks are defending themselves against the Syrians, or do you have any information on what – on the – whether the Russians would intervene to defend the Syrians from the Turks? And then, just speaking of the Russians, Sergey Lavrov argued that a conflict of this sort, a strike on Turkish forces in Syria, isn’t eligible for Article 5 consideration because it’s beyond the territorial restrictions of the Washington Treaty. Is he reading that correctly?

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: We really appreciate Sergey Lavrov’s —

QUESTION: Analysis (laughter).

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: — expert advice and analysis as Joel said, of the —

QUESTION: NATO Charter.

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: — obligations of the NATO charter on its members, of which Russia is not one and probably is not going to soon be one. This is right now an issue of getting a ceasefire, getting returned to the Sochi agreement that everybody had signed up for in September and October of last year. And as I said, the Russians are actively involved in combat operations. They’re fighting with the Syrians, mainly with their air power, against the Turks and the Turkish-supported opposition forces who are engaged on the other side.

MODERATOR: Okay.

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Okay.

MODERATOR: Thank you very much, sir. Appreciate it.

QUESTION: Thank you.

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Thank you.