Russian President Vladimir Putin meets with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the Kremlin in Moscow on March 5, 2020. (PAVEL GOLOVKIN / POOL / AFP)

Russian President Vladimir Putin told his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan that they shouldn’t ruin their relationship over the deepening crisis in Syria’s Idlib province, as the two leaders started high-stakes talks aimed at patching up ties.

“We definitely have to discuss the whole situation that’s developed so far so that A, nothing like this happens again, and B, so that Russia-Turkish ties are not destroyed,” Putin told the Turkish president at the start of their summit in Moscow on Thursday.

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He offered condolences to Erdogan over the dozens of deaths suffered by the Turkish military in recent weeks during clashes with Russia-backed Syrian government forces in Idlib. But Syrian forces also sustained “serious losses,” Putin said.

We definitely have to discuss the whole situation that’s developed so far so that A, nothing like this happens again, and B, so that Russia-Turkish ties are not destroyed

Vladimir Putin, President, Russia

“The world is watching us today,” Erdogan replied, voicing hope that their decisions at the talks will help to ease the crisis.

The two sides are seeking to avert a rupture in their uneasy partnership in Syria, following a Turkish military blitz in Idlib in retaliation for the worst losses of its Syrian campaign. Erdogan wants Putin to accept his plan to carve out a new zone of control in the province to resettle millions of refugees, according to senior officials familiar with Ankara’s policy. That clashes with Putin’s insistence that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad must regain control over all of his country’s territory.

Both Russia and Turkey have been careful to avoid direct conflict even as the violence has spiked in recent days. While Russia formally controls the skies above Syria, Turkey unleashed a barrage from killer drones against Assad’s army after an airstrike killed 33 Turkish soldiers in a single day on Feb 27.

Putin told Erdogan that Syrian and Russian forces had not known of the presence of Turkish troops in the particular area where the attack occurred, repeating an explanation that Ankara has already rejected.

READ MORE: Clashes in strategic north Syrian town after Turkish strikes

Watching nervously on the sidelines are European Union leaders alarmed by Erdogan’s threat to allow millions of refugees to cross its border, unleashing a new migrant crisis for the bloc that’s already reeling from populist pressures over the issue. Putin discussed the Idlib situation by phone with European Council President Charles Michel, who spoke “about the measures being taken to prevent illegal migration to EU countries,” according to a Kremlin statement Thursday.

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Idlib is the last stronghold of anti-Assad rebels in Syria once backed by the West and now largely abandoned. In recent weeks, the Syrian military backed by Russian aircraft have stepped up attempts to retake the city and surrounding region, sending a new wave of refugees fleeing toward the Turkish border.