Turkey "keeps on hitting regime targets" in the Idlib region in retaliation, the ministry said on Twitter.

Thirty-three Turkish soldiers were killed in an air strike by Russian-backed Syrian regime forces in the northwestern province of Idlib on Thursday -- the biggest Turkish military loss on the battlefield in recent years.

Syrian regime forces backed by Russian air strikes have since December clawed back chunks of the Idlib region, forcing close to a million people to flee their homes and shelters amid bitter cold.