Russia accuses Turkey of Syria 'expansion'

Russia on Sunday accused Turkey of operating inside Syria in a "rampant" military expansion across its conflict-riven neighbour's border.

"According to information we have, (Turkish forces) are fortifying their positions hundreds of metres (yards) from the border, inside Syria," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told broadcaster Ren-TV.

"That is rampant expansion," he charged.

"While demanding that Kurdish positions are not reinforced in Syria, Turkey has been claiming its sovereign right to create 'security zones' on Syrian soil," said Lavrov.

Turkey has called for the creation of a secure zone 10 kilometres (six miles) inside Syria.

Last month, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan dismissed a Russian claim that Turkey was looking to invade Syria was "laughable".

The Syrian conflict has stoked growing friction between Ankara and Moscow, which wants to see the Kurds included in diplomatic efforts to resolve the five-year civil war.

Last month, the UN Security Council rejected a Russian draft resolution calling for a halt to Turkey's military actions in Syria.

Earlier this month, Lavrov called for the closure of the Syrian-Turkish border to cut off outside supplies to "terrorists" and also said that any attempt to keep the Kurds out of peace talks would infringe on the rights "of a large and significant group" of people living in the war-torn country.

Such remarks have sparked anger in Turkey, which last month pledged to keep up retaliatory artillery strikes on Syrian Kurdish fighters to defend its "territorial integrity" despite a truce which came into force on February 27.

Moscow is urging the inclusion of Kurds in the upcoming talks which begin in Geneva on Monday in the latest push to end a war that has killed more than 270,000 people and forced millions into exile.

Ties between Moscow, which backs Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and Ankara, which supports the opposition, nosedived after Turkey shot down a Russian warplane on the Syrian border in November, claiming it had entered Turkish airspace

The issue of Syria's Kurds has caused a rare rift between the US and Turkey, with Washington seeing the armed wing of Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) as the most effective force fighting Islamic State jihadists in Syria.

But Ankara regards the PYD as an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) which has been fighting the Turkish government for more autonomy since 1984.