Istanbul - Turkey has finalised preparations to make more safe areas inside Syria as it did via two military incursions in the north of the country it borders, President Tayyip Erdogan said on Sunday. Speaking at his AK Party’s provincial headquarters in the Black Sea coastal city of Trabzon, Erdogan said quarter of a million people had already returned to liberated areas in Syria.

Erdogan said diplomatic and military efforts in Syria’s Idlib province had been accelerated to avoid a “catastrophe” like those seen in other parts of Syria.