RUSSIAN Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called yesterday for international observers along Turkey’s porous border with Syria to stem the flow of terrorists and arms.

His comments at a press conference with his Japanese counterpart Fumio Kishida in Tokyo echoed Russian UN ambassador Vitaly Churkin’s address to the Security Council the day before.

“There are ‘holes’ on the Turkish borders through which gunmen and weapons get into Syria,” Mr Lavrov said, while in the other directions there was “a flow of different contraband.”

Debating a motion on preventing a repeat of recent chemical weapons attacks by Islamic State (Isis) and the Army of Islam, Mr Churkin accused Turkey of “complacency or inaction” in allowing £1.3 million-worth of explosives and chemicals to be smuggled across the frontier.

Russian ceasefire monitors in Syria said some 150 militants crossed from Turkey into Latakia province on Thursday.

Sources have hinted to the Morning Star that Moscow may be seeking rapprochement with Ankara following November’s downing of a Russian jet over northern Syria.

On Thursday, Russian president Vladimir Putin said that Russia still considers Turkey a friendly nation, but added: “We have problems with a few politicians whose behaviour we consider inadequate.”

The Syrian delegation to peace talks with the Saudi-backed High Negotiations Committee (HNC) arrived in Geneva yesterday.

But fighting continued in Aleppo following multiple breaches of the ceasefire by HNC members Ahrar as-Sham and the Army of Islam in alliance with the al-Qaida-affiliated Nusra Front.

On Thursday night insurgents recaptured parts of the Handarat Palestinian refugee camp and the Malah Farms area north of Aleppo city they lost to the Syrian army and Palestinian militia earlier that day.

But more fighting is expected, with some 10,000 reinforcements reportedly sent to Aleppo province to surround and capture the rebel-held east of Aleppo city.

In Idlib province an insurgent sniper shot and injured three-month-old baby girl Fatima Shaqoul yesterday in the besieged government-held town of al-Fu’ah, where her four-year-old brother was killed by a sniper last year.

And Turkish troops reportedly fired on hundreds of refugees fleeing across the border from fighting between Isis and an alliance of Turkmen militias, Nusra Front and the ragtag Free Syrian Army.