Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned on Wednesday that an attack against the opposition-held Idlib province in northwestern Syria would be a “massacre.” “The situation in Idlib is crucial for Turkey. A ruthless process has been going on there. ... God forbid, if this area is hailed by missiles there would be a serious massacre,” Erdogan was quoted as saying by Hurriyet Daily. He said he will bring up the issue of Idlib during Friday’s summit in Tehran with his Russian and Iranian counterparts. “We will carry this issue to a positive point with the Tehran summit, which is a continuation of Astana. I hope we will be able to prevent the Syrian region’s extremism in this region,” Erdogan said. Speaking to reporters on the plane back from an official visit to Kyrgyzstan, Erdogan said the road map for the northern Syrian city of Manbij agreed between Ankara and Washington in June is not going forward on the same path, according to Hurriyet. Under the road map for Manbij agreed by the two NATO allies, Turkish and US forces are now carrying out joint patrols there to clear the area of Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) members. “We are not at an ideal point (about Manbij). Unfortunately the agreement made is not going forward in the same direction as the initial discussions,” Erdogan was quoted as saying. In a meeting on Tuesday, Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar and the US special representative for Syria, James Jeffrey, discussed the developments in Syria.