The Turkish proposal to create a buffer zone in the area of compact residence of Syrian Turkmen in northern Syria may derive from Ankara's wish to protect local terrorist infrastructures, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.

"According to the latest information, the area which our Turkish colleagues deem to be populated by Syrian Turkmen not only accommodates several hundreds or thousands of militants - citizens of the Russian Federation, as the [Russian] president said yesterday, who present a direct threat to our security, security of our people but also, according to the available information, that area accommodates infrastructures of the militants, including arms and ammo depots, command centers, and logistics centers," he said at a press conference in Moscow.

"I asked [the Turkish foreign minister] whether such attention of Turkey to that area, including the constant propositions to create a buffer zone in that territory, was actually a wish to protect those infrastructures and to prevent their destruction. I was not given an answer to that question either," Lavrov said.