RUSSIA and Turkey’s presidents held talks on Syria in Moscow yesterday, after Damascus confirmed Turkish invaders had shelled its troops.

“We are actively working to solve the most acute crises, first of all in Syria,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said as he welcomed his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan to the Kremlin.

“Our military and special services have established very trusting and efficient contacts,” he said.

Following the meeting Mr Putin said Russia reporters saw Syria’s territorial integrity as a “necessary condition for the full-scale peace settlement in this country.”

Meanwhile Syria’s Foreign Ministry wrote to the UN demanding it force Turkey to pull its invading troops out of northern Aleppo province.

Late on Thursday Syria’s official Sana news agency quoted military sources confirming Wednesday’s shelling of army “border guards” positions in the buffer zone set up west of Manbij.

They said the attack “claimed the lives of a number of persons and wounded many others,” adding that Turkey was trying to hinder their rapid advances against Isis terrorists.

Russian army advisers are also operating in the area.

Earlier this week, the US confirmed its special forces embedded with the Kurdish YPG were in Manbij to deter Turkish aggression.

Meanwhile Turkey boasted it and its Free Syrian Army allies had “neutralised” 71 YPG militia in the area this week.

But Russian General Sergei Rudskoi claimed his country’s air forces had wiped out more than 600 Isis zealots and destroyed 16 armoured vehicles in 452 air strikes south of Manbij this week.