UN Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura said a potential “perfect storm” is looming over Syria’s Idlib province, with possible military implications beyond the region.

Speaking to reporters in Geneva on Thursday, De Mistura offered to travel to Idlib to help ensure civilians can leave through a humanitarian corridor amid fears of an imminent government offensive to retake the last major region controlled by rebels.

“You can understand that when there is a perfect storm coming up in front of our eyes potentially, we need to address first things first,” De Mistura said. 

“I am once again prepared… personally and physically to get involved myself… to ensure such a temporary corridor would be feasible and guaranteed for the people so that they can then return to their own places once this is over,” he added.

The UN also called on Russia, Iran and Turkey to forestall the battle in Idlib, which would affect millions of civilians and could see both sides using chemical weapons.

Idlib, which borders Turkey, is home to nearly three million people, up to half of whom are rebels and civilians transferred en masse from other territory that has fallen to Syrian troops after intense battles.

A major military operation in Idlib would pose a particularly threatening humanitarian situation because there is no opposition territory left in Syria where people could be evacuated to.

“There is no other Idlib,” De Mistura said, stressing the need to ensure civilians can evacuate to nearby areas under government control, with guarantees their rights will be respected once they get there.

“It would be a tragic irony frankly if at almost the end of… a territorial war inside Syria, we would be witnessing the most horrific tragedy to the largest number of civilians,” he said.

“It would be quite tragic at this stage, having seen how difficult the seven years (of Syria’s war) have been.”

‘Hotbed of terrorists’

Meanwhile, the Kremlin on Thursday called the Syrian rebel-held province of Idlib a hotbed of terrorists and said not tackling the problem was not a good option.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov made the comments to reporters on a conference call while answering a question about planned Russian naval drills in the Mediterranean, an exercise he said was justified due to the difficult situation in Syria.

Russia said on Wednesday that fighters there “must be liquidated” and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov described them as “a festering abscess”.

More than 350,000 people have been killed and millions displaced since Syria’s war started in 2011 with the brutal repression of anti-government protests.

Two years ago, De Mistura offered to go to eastern Aleppo and to personally escort al-Nusra rebels out of the besieged city. 

“Al-Nusra refused my offer to accompany them out, and they went to Idlib, and we lost two months at least and thousands of people died because of that,” he said.

The UN envoy said there were an estimated 10,000 al-Qaeda and al-Nusra fighters in Idlib, along with their families.

While he stressed the legitimacy of battling such “UN-identified terrorists”, he insisted efforts to defeat them did not justify putting the lives of some 2.9 million people in the area at risk.

“There is and can be no justification… to not avoid using heavy weapons in densely populated areas,” he said.

On Wednesday, UN chief Antonio Guterres warned that full-scale military operations in Idlib province could lead to a “humanitarian catastrophe” and cautioned against the use of chemical weapons.

A major offensive in the Idlib area, where displaced people already make up half the population, risks forcing another 700,000 Syrians from their homes, the United Nations said.

It also risks raising tensions with Turkey, whose army established a ring of observation posts around the rebel territory last year under a “de-escalation” deal with Russia and Iran.

Turkey, which has a small military presence in Idlib, has warned against such an attack.

A US pastor under house arrest in Turkey is prepared take his case to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) unless the Turkish judiciary sets him free, his lawyer told Al Jazeera.

The case against Andrew Brunson, who is being held on terrorism charges, has triggered a full-blown diplomatic row between Washington and Ankara with no end in sight. 

A Turkish court in the western province of Izmir on August 17 rejected an appeal to release Brunson, upholding a judgment taken by a lower court earlier in the week.

Ismail Cem Halavurt, Brunson’s lawyer, said that they would go to the Constitutional Court, the highest court in Turkey, within weeks as the last effort to find a domestic remedy to Brunson’s situation.

“We will receive a formal notification on the latest verdict by the criminal court in Izmir soon. Then we have a month to appeal it at the Constitutional Court,” Halavurt said, adding that Brunson’s “right to liberty and security” as well as “right to travel” have been breached.

“Unless the Constitutional Court frees him, we will have to take the case to the ECHR as the domestic legal remedies we can seek will be exhausted,” he added.

Turkey is one of 47 signatories of the European Convention on Human Rights that established the supranational human rights court, which makes binding verdicts.

Detained in 2016

A protestant pastor, Brunson, who lived in Turkey over two decades with his family, was arrested in 2016 in a government crackdown following a failed coup bid. He faces 35 years in prison on espionage and terrorism charges.

Brunson was in prison before he was allowed to be kept under house arrest on July 25. He also has a court-ordered travel ban imposed on him. 

Halavurt said that the case has been increasingly politicised because of the eroding diplomatic climate between Washington and Ankara.

“It is very hard for the Turkish judiciary to act impartial in such a politicised case. Therefore, we are prepared to take it to the relevant international judicial authority, the ECHR,” he told Al Jazeera.

US and Turkish officials have been trading barbs over the Brunson case, which included remarks from US President Donald Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Turkish officials have stressed that the Turkish courts were independent, including the ones hearing the case of Brunson.

Erdogan said earlier in August that his country would not make compromises regarding the independence of the judiciary, in a reference to the Brunson issue.

Talking to Al Jazeera, Ahmet Berat Conker, an MP with Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party, called on the US to respect the judicial process for the pastor.

“The independent Turkish judiciary will make a verdict on the case without bowing to any pressures,” said Conker, who is also a member of parliament’s foreign affairs committee.

Tariff war

The NATO allies have recently imposed increased tariffs on each other as the diplomatic row spilled over to the economic arena.

Washington announced a doubling of steel and aluminium tariffs on Turkey on August 10, with Ankara hitting back five days later by doubling tariffs on certain US imports, such as passenger cars, alcohol and tobacco.

“It is a big mistake to link the future of mutual relations to a judicial judgment. The approach of the Trump administration to the issue is wrong,” Conker told Al Jazeera.

“The two countries should discuss the issues they have through diplomatic channels, and independent from judicial processes.”

The Turkish lira has taken a dive since the beginning of the year, and with an acceding speed in the month of August. The currency lost more than 40 percent of its value against the US dollar this year, amid macroeconomic concerns and the diplomatic showdown between Washington and Ankara.

The Turkish government has demanded extradition of Fethullah Gulen, an exiled religious leader based in the US and wanted in Turkey. Ankara accuses Gulen of masterminding the July 15 coup attempt that killed about 300 people.

Erdogan has suggested in public addresses that an exchange of Gulen for Brunson would be possible.

A US official has called for an investigation into attacks by the Saudi-UAE coalition in Yemen and for perpetrators to be held accountable.

In an interview with Al Jazeera in the Saudi city of Jeddah, Deputy US Ambassador to Yemen Ana Escrogima called for a speedy and transparent probe into the raids carried out by the Saudi-UAE coalition in Yemen.

Escorgima’s calls came after a team of UN-mandated investigators said in a report they had “reasonable grounds to believe that the parties to the armed conflict in Yemen have committed a substantial number of violations of international humanitarian law”.

The damning report blamed both the Houthis and the Saudi-UAE coalition for the violence in Yemen, but said air attacks by the military coalition had caused the most direct civilian casualties in the war, and added that a blockade of Yemeni ports and airspace may have violated international humanitarian law.

Kamel Jendoubi, who heads the UN team, said the investigators had identified a number of alleged perpetrators.

“A confidential list of these individuals will be presented today to the [UN] High Commissioner” for Human Rights, he told journalists in Geneva.

“The group of experts has reason to believe the government of Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE, are responsible for violations of human rights,” said Jendoubi.

“Violations and crimes have been perpetrated and continue to be perpetrated in Yemen by the parties to the conflict.

The experts also accused the Houthis of indiscriminate shelling in civilian areas and snipers targeting non-combatants.

Saudi-UAE response

The coalition, which has been at war with Houthi rebels since March 2015, has repeatedly denied allegations of war crimes, and claims its attacks are not directed at civilians.

A spokesperson for the Saudi military said the UN report was referred to a legal team for review and will announce its conclusions after it is completed.

UAE’s Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash said the report merited a response.

“We should review and respond to the [UN] experts’ report published today,” said Gargash in a tweet. “The coalition is fulfilling its role in reclaiming the Yemeni state and securing the future of the region from Iranian interference.”

In a statement published by the Saudi Press Agency on Wednesday, the coalition condemned the report saying it “did not refer to the Iranian role in the continuation of the war in Yemen and fueling the conflict and its continued support for the Houthis.”

Data collected by Al Jazeera and the Yemen Data Project has found almost one-third of the 16,000 air raids carried out in the country have hit non-military sites.

The attacks have targeted weddings and hospitals, as well as water and electricity plants, killing and wounding thousands.

The aid group Save the Children has estimated that an average of 130 children die every day from extreme hunger and disease – a crisis brought about by the conflict.

And according to the UN, at least 10,000 people have been killed since the start of the conflict. However, analysts say the death toll is likely to be higher.

The UN has described the situation in Yemen as world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

Outgoing UN human rights chief Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein has said that Myanmar’s de-facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi should have resigned over her country’s military’s campaign against the Rohingya last year.

Hussein told the BBC that her attempts to excuse it were “deeply regrettable”.

“She was in a position to do something,” said Hussein. “She could have stayed quiet – or even better, she could have resigned.”

“There was no need for her to be the spokesperson of the Burmese military. She didn’t have to say this was an iceberg of misinformation. These were fabrications,” he added.

“She could have said look, you know, I am prepared to be the nominal leader of the country but not under these conditions.”

His comments come after a UN report said Myanmar’s military carried out mass killings and gang rapes of Rohingya with “genocidal intent” and called on the commander-in-chief and five generals to be prosecuted.

Myanmar has rejected the UN‘s findings, calling the allegations false.

The UN report, published on Monday, blamed Suu Kyi, for failing to prevent the violence.

Despite this, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate refused to recognise the atrocities committed by the Myanmar military and instead justified her government’s campaign against the beleaguered Muslim community, while speaking at a lecture in Singapore last week.

Suu Kyi even refused to refer to the ethnic group by its name, and has missed several opportunities to speak publicly about the issue, including the UN General Assembly in New York last September.

Many Buddhists in Myanmar believe that the Rohingya are Bengalis who migrated to the country illegally during the British rule in the subcontinent, and have rejected their claims that their roots in the region that go back centuries.

Since 2012, incidents of religious intolerance and incitement against Muslims have increased across the country, with the Rohingya frequently attacked and portrayed as a “threat to race and religion”.

Myanmar’s government has signed several agreements on preparing for the return of the Rohingya, but UN agencies have accused it of dragging its feet, and human rights groups are concerned that the safety of returning Rohingya cannot be assured.

The UN, which hasn’t been granted access to Rakhine since the outbreak of violence in August 2017, fears the returning refugees won’t be given freedom of movement if they return.