skip to main |
skip to sidebar
Turkey ups the ante. Again. BBC News. Excerpts:
Turkey has said a Syria-bound passenger plane which it forced to land in Ankara was carrying "illegal cargo".
The Syrian Air plane was intercepted by Turkey and searched over suspicions it was carrying military equipment.
But officials in Russia and Syria strongly denied the allegations and accused the Turkish authorities of endangering passengers and crew.
Tension between Turkey and Syria has been high since five Turkish civilians were killed last week by mortar bombs.
In response, Turkey fired into Syria for the first time since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began last year.
'Air piracy'
Turkey's Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said "objectionable" cargo had been confiscated from the plane.
"There is illegal cargo on the plane that should have been reported," he told the Anatolia news agency.
He did not specify whether any weapons had been found, but unconfirmed reports in Turkish media said the seized items included boxes of military communication equipment.
The foreign minister said Turkey, which imposed an arms embargo on Syria last year, would continue to investigate Syrian passenger planes flying over its air space.
Both Syria and Russia reacted angrily to the plane's enforced diversion.
Syrian Transport Minister Mahmoud Saeed accused Turkey of carrying out "air piracy" and breaking civil aviation agreements, according to Lebanon's al-Manar TV.
Gaida Abdul Latif, boss of Syrian Air, accused Turkey of endangering her passengers and crew.
"Turkish military aircraft forced the plane to land without giving prior warning to the pilot. The military aircraft were so close that there could have been an accident," she said.
'Spare parts'
Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said Turkish officials had failed to inform the embassy that 17 Russian citizens were on board the plane.
"We are concerned that, in this emergency situation, the lives and safety of the passengers, including 17 Russian nationals, were put at risk," he said.
Russia's state arms supplier Rosoboronexport said in a statement it had no information about the plane's cargo, and denied it had any connection with the flight or anything on board.
Earlier, Mr Davutoglu had said Ankara was determined to stop any transfer of weapons to Syria through its airspace.
He said Ankara had received information that the Damascus-bound plane could be carrying "non-civilian cargo".
The Airbus A320 airliner had about 30 passengers on board, far fewer than its 180 passenger capacity.
The aircraft was escorted by two Turkish fighters to the capital's Esenboga airport for security checks.
Tick.. Tick.. Tick.. The Telegraph, via The Extinction Protocol:
October 11, 2012 – TURKEY - If anyone believed that Syria’s bloodshed would stay inside the country’s borders, the events of the last week should have put them right. I’m in southern Turkey, near the frontier with Syria, and this area feels like the new front line of the battle against Bashar al-Assad’s regime. Convoys of Turkish army vehicles ply the roads down to the border and, quietly, civilians are trickling away to safer areas. The reason is simple: cross-border artillery and mortar bombardments have become daily events. Last Friday, I went to the scene of the bloodiest incident so far, when a Syrian mortar bomb landed outside a family home in the Turkish town of Akçakale. By malign chance, a mother, her six daughters and a female relative happened to be outside, making dinner under an olive tree, when the weapon exploded beside them. They were, quite simply, cut to pieces. When I arrived, a severed human finger, covered in flies, was still lying on the ground. Three of the girls survived with critical injuries; the mother, three daughters and the visiting relative were all killed. Since then, hardly a day has passed without the Syrian army firing shells or bombs into Turkey, or vice versa. If another family dies in similar circumstances, the Turkish government will come under immense popular pressure to respond with full force. If the Akçakale killings were to be repeated, I would not be surprised if Turkey retaliated with a strike by troops as well as artillery, possibly accompanied with air power. The country’s parliament has authorised the government to do exactly that if necessary. In other words, Turkey and Syria are close to war. The two countries have been waging a covert, undeclared war since the onset of the uprising against Assad, with Turkey supplying the Syrian rebels and Damascus hitting back by fuelling the Kurdish insurgency inside its neighbor. But we could be close to the moment when this shadow war becomes a formal, cross-border conflict. The lesson is clear: a civil war in volatile region is like a brushfire. Leave it alone, and it will spread. –Telegraph
While the media has chosen to ignore this story, the bad blood between Turkey and Syria continues to grow. Any bets on which country will stick their ass into the action next?
Syria Arrests Turkish Army General in Aleppo. Maybe he's on "foodie" vacation. There's better hummus in Syria, donchaknow.. Fars News Agency:
TEHRAN (FNA)- The Syrian Army announced that it has recently apprehended a Turkish general who commanded the terrorists trying to seize control of Aleppo.
According to an informed source in Syria, the Turkish general was arrested during the Syrian Army's clashes with the terrorists in Aleppo.
News reports said that the Turkish general has been taken to Damascus for further interrogations.
Earlier, Turkish media also reported that Syria has detained 40 Turkish military officers in different parts of the country, and said that efforts to release them have failed.
Turkey along with the US, Saudi Arabia and Qatar have been supporting terrorists and rebel groups in Syria and have practically brought a UN peace initiative into failure to bring President Assad's government into collapse.
Syria has been experiencing unrest since March 2011 with organized attacks by well-armed gangs against Syrian police forces and border guards being reported across the country.
Hundreds of people, including members of the security forces, have been killed, when some protest rallies turned into armed clashes.
The government blames outlaws, saboteurs, and armed terrorist groups for the deaths, stressing that the unrest is being orchestrated from abroad.
In October 2011, calm was eventually restored in the Arab state after President Assad started a reform initiative in the country, but Israel, the US and its Arab allies are seeking hard to bring the country into chaos through any possible means. Tel Aviv, Washington and some Arab capitals have been staging various plots in the hope of increasing unrests in Syria.
Turkey is rapidly becoming Gladys Kravitz or Iago of the middle east. There's probably going to be some blowback for this set of shenanigans. Coupled with the insurgents targeting Christians, might the West be backing the wrong horse?
Big implications, so of course you'll find this in the Friday afternoon/Olympics news dump.. BIG doin's, people.. AntiWar:
Syrian President Bashar Assad, amid growing unrest, has granted control of parts of northern Syria over to militant Kurds, long branded as terrorists by Turkey, in a provocation that could lead the conflict to break out internationally.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan had earlier said that Turkey would not accept an autonomous Kurdish area in Syria, fearing separatist Kurds in Turkey would use it as a safe-haven to launch cross-border attacks.
Late on Thursday Turkey mobilized and deployed tanks and missile batteries on the Syrian border near the Kurdish region, with Erdogan commenting if the Kurds control these areas, “then intervening would be our most natural right.”
Kurdish control of these border areas are an apparent consequence of the chaos of Syria’s internal conflict, in which the US and its allies are sending aid, intelligence, and weapons to the Syrian rebels, despite numerous crimes and ties to terrorist groups.
Turkish military intervention against the Assad regime came close to being a reality back a few months ago when Syria downed a Turkish fighter jet that went into Syrian airspace. Turkey has shown little hesitation to attack its neighbors if they feel their Kurdish threat demands it, as cross-border attacks into Iraq’s Kurdish region in recent months has shown.
If Turkey, a NATO member, involves itself in the Syrian conflict in a direct and belligerent way, it could have far reaching consequences, with possible implications of a US intervention.
This is an interesting turn of events. Will Turkey show restraint to an obvious provocation? I wonder how Turkish Kurds will feel about their government's reaction to Assad's latest move? Erdogan should probably do a little bit of yoga or deep breathing before initiating any response.. This could be the weekend that the situation in Syria becomes international. Stay tuned!
The roundup courtesy of The Extinction Protocol. Again, there seems to be more going on here..
BBC:
Turkey has scrambled six F-16 fighter jets near its border with Syria after Syrian helicopters came close to the border, the country’s army says. Six jets were sent to the area in response to three such incidents on Saturday, the statement said, adding that there was no violation of Turkish airspace. Last month, Syrian forces shot down a Turkish jet in the border area. The incident further strained already tense relations between former allies. Turkey’s government has been outspoken in its condemnation of Syria’s response to the 16-month anti-government uprising, which has seen more than 30,000 Syrian refugees enter Turkey. On Friday, Turkey said it had begun deploying rocket launchers and anti-aircraft guns along the border in response to the downing of its F-4 Phantom jet on 22 June. The move came after Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned that Turkey had changed its rules of military engagement and would now treat any Syrian military approaching the border as a threat.
Wall Street Journal:
A plan by world powers for a Syrian political transition appeared doomed Sunday, with Bashar al-Assad’s regime interpreting the outcome as a fresh lifeline from Russia—its principal international backer—while the lack of any reference in the plan to Mr. Assad’s departure from office angered the Syrian opposition. With no sign of any commitment by Syria’s warring sides to embrace the transition plan outlined in Geneva on Saturday, many warned that violence could worsen even beyond the levels seen in June, which is now believed to have been the bloodiest month in the Syrian conflict.
GMA News(Phillipines)
At least 83 people were killed, mostly civilians, in violence across Syria on Saturday, and hundreds more were trapped in Douma as regime forces stormed the town in Damascus province, monitors said. In the single most serious incident, mortar fire killed 30 civilians who were attending a funeral in the town of Zamalka, 10 kilometers (six miles) east of the Syrian capital of Damascus, the Syrian Observatory for Human rights said. The Observatory did not give any further details on the Zamalka incident but published two videos from people on the ground. The first showed several dozen people, mostly men waving Syrian revolutionary flags and shouting slogans as they accompanied the funeral cortege, when the picture was interrupted by an explosion. The second, which could not be confirmed as being shot at the same scene, showed people running away from a cloud of dust that gradually dissipated to show numerous bodies lying on the ground.
Updates to come.
Tensions continue to rise. The Times of Israel. Excerpts:
The Turkish military mobilized large numbers of reinforcements from its eastern provinces to the Syrian border on Tuesday, amid rising tension with Damascus, after the downing by Syria of a Turkish Air Force jet on Friday, Turkish media reported.
Large numbers of Turkish troops — including at least 15 long-range artillery pieces and tanks – moved to the Syrian frontier from the eastern city of Diyarbakir. A video published by the Turkish Cihan News Agency showed Turkish tanks being transported by carrier trucks toward the frontier.
The mobilization followed statements by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan that the Turkish military will respond to any future violation of its border by Syrian military elements.
“As awe-inspiring as Turkey’s friendship is, Turkey’s wrath is equally awe-inspiring,” Erdogan told the Turkish parliament on Tuesday. (He seems angry..)
“The rules of engagement of the Turkish Armed Forces have changed,” Erdogan said. “Any military element that approaches the Turkish border from Syria posing a security risk and danger will be regarded as a threat and treated as a military target.”
Erdogan closed his remarks with an especially harsh condemnation of Syrian President Bashar Assad: “Turkey and the Turkish people will continue to provide all support until the people of Syria have been saved from this tyrannical, murderous, bloody dictator and his gang.”
But not everyone is in favor of Erdogan's tough stance, including the father of one of the missing pilots..
The father of one of the two missing pilots who were shot down in Friday’s incident told Turkish newspaper Hürriyet Daily News that he opposed Turkey going to war over his son.
“It is not appropriate for a country to go to war over a pilot, an airplane or 50 airplanes,” Ali Erton said. He said he was aware of the risks his son took as a military pilot, but added “what matters is that my son serves his country.”
NATO’s North Atlantic Council condemned Tuesday Syria’s downing of the Turkish jet on Friday, but did not recommend military action for the act, as Ankara has requested.
At an emergency meeting, requested by Turkey and chaired by NATO secretary-general Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the council clearly denounced Syria’s aggression “in the strongest terms,” calling the shooting down of a Turkish jet over the Mediterranean “unacceptable.”
“It is another example of the Syrian disregard for international norms, peace and security, and human life,” said the NATO chief, expressing his solidarity with Turkey, but making no mention of retaliatory action.
The back channel lines between Damascus and Ankara and Ankara and Tel Aviv must be burning up right about now.. I'm having a really hard time believing that there's not more going on here, and that none of it is what it seems. Maybe I'm just a paranoid conspiritard, but this still doesn't pass the smell test, and NATO doesn't seem to be having any of it, either.. As always, I could be spectacularly wrong, so keep watching the Turkish/Syrian border babies!
Posts
