Turkey’s foreign minister said the Moscow trip by Chief of Staff Hulusi Akar was part of talks with both Russia and Iran, the two main backers of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, to allow Turkish planes to take part in an Afrin campaign, Reuters reported.

“We will intervene in Afrin,” Mevlut Cavusoglu told broadcaster CNN Turk, adding he did not expect Russia to oppose any operation there. “We are meeting the Russians and Iran on the use of air space.”

Turkey has ratcheted up its threats to take military action in Afrin in the past week, in response to U.S. plans to support setting up a 30,000-strong force to guard areas held by Kurdish-led fighters in a large part of Syria east of Afrin.

In recent days Turkey has deployed tanks near the border with Syria across from the Afrin region, and turkey President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says Turkey’s military has shelled Kurdish forces there.

Cavusoglu said Akar would hold talks in Moscow with Russia’s armed forces chief to discuss Afrin, Idlib “and the future of Syria”.

Cavusoglu said Turkey needed to take into account the presence of a small number of Russian observers in Afrin. “When we carry out an intervention, we need to coordinate on this, it should not impact the Russian observers,” he said.

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