Turkey authorizes military operations in Syria

Peo­ple mourn after they buried the mor­tar attack vic­tims Thurs­day in Akcakale, Turkey. Turkey fired on Syr­ian tar­gets for a sec­ond day Thurs­day, but said it has no inten­tion of declar­ing war, despite ten­sions after deadly shelling from Syria killed five civil­ians in a Turk­ish bor­der town. (Asso­ci­ated Press)

MEHMET GUZEL

SUZAN FRASER

Asso­ci­ated Press

AKCAKALE, Turkey — Turkey sanc­tioned fur­ther mil­i­tary action against Syria on Thurs­day and bom­barded tar­gets across the bor­der with artillery for a sec­ond day, rais­ing the stakes in a con­flict that increas­ingly is bleed­ing out­side Syr­ian territory.

Although both sides moved to calm ten­sions, Turkey’s par­lia­ment over­whelm­ingly approved a bill allow­ing the mil­i­tary to con­duct cross-border oper­a­tions into Syria — mak­ing clear that Ankara has mil­i­tary options that do not involve its West­ern or Arab allies.

It was the most dra­matic esca­la­tion in ten­sions between the coun­tries, which were close allies before the revolt against Syr­ian Pres­i­dent Bashar Assad began in March 2011. Over the past 18 months, how­ever, Turkey has become one of the strongest crit­ics of the Syr­ian regime, accus­ing it of sav­agery and mas­sacres against the opposition.

The rebels who are try­ing to bring down Assad have used Turkey as their base, enrag­ing a regime that accuses for­eign coun­tries of foment­ing the unrest inside Syria.

The spark for the lat­est hos­til­ity was a mor­tar shell fired from Syria that slammed into a house in the Turk­ish bor­der vil­lage of Akcakale on Wednes­day, killing two women and three children.

“(The shell) hit my neigh­bor next door. His wife, his chil­dren died,” vil­lager Bakir Kut­lugil told The Asso­ci­ated Press. “Now I worry whether the next one will hit me or my neighbor.”

Mehmet Yasin, another vil­lager, said he feared Turkey will get drawn into more vio­lence. “They are war­ring over there any­way. Why should we bat­tle against any­one?” he asked.

The Turk­ish response to the Syr­ian shelling was swift — it fired salvos of artillery rounds inside Syria, con­tacted its NATO allies and con­vened Par­lia­ment for a vote autho­riz­ing fur­ther cross-border mil­i­tary oper­a­tions if necessary.

The bill opens the way for uni­lat­eral action by Turkey’s armed forces inside Syria. Turkey has used a sim­i­lar pro­vi­sion to repeat­edly attack sus­pected Kur­dish rebel posi­tions in north­ern Iraq.

Syria’s U.N. envoy said Thurs­day that his gov­ern­ment was inves­ti­gat­ing the source of the cross-border shelling and did not want any esca­la­tion of vio­lence with Turkey.

Ambas­sador Bashar Ja’afari said the Assad regime sent its “deep­est con­do­lences” to the fam­i­lies of the vic­tims, but stopped short of an apol­ogy, pend­ing the out­come of the inves­ti­ga­tion. He also urged Turkey to act “wisely, ratio­nally” and pre­vent infil­tra­tion of “ter­ror­ists and insur­gents” and the smug­gling of arms across the border.

Turk­ish offi­cials, how­ever, char­ac­ter­ized the state­ment as an apology.

Ja’afari said that the return shelling from Turkey early Thurs­day injured two Syr­ian army officials.

Syr­ian oppo­si­tion fig­ures in Akcakale, which has a clear sight line into Syria, said the tar­gets of Turkey’s retal­ia­tory attacks included at least one tank and one anti-aircraft gun in the town of Tal Abyad in Raqqa province, where the Syr­ian regime and rebels are bat­tling for control.

Some res­i­dents of Akcakale, fear­ful of more stray shells, aban­doned their homes and spent the night on the streets. Oth­ers gath­ered out­side the mayor’s office, afraid to return to their homes as the dull thud of dis­tant artillery fire rumbled.

The bor­der vio­lence has added a dan­ger­ous new dimen­sion to Syria’s civil war, drag­ging Syria’s neigh­bors deeper into a con­flict that activists say has already killed 30,000 people.

Still, both Syria and Turkey appear loath to see the sit­u­a­tion spi­ral out of control.

Turk­ish Prime Min­is­ter Recep Tayyip Erdo­gan said Thurs­day that Turkey did not want war with Syria but was deter­mined to pro­tect its bor­ders and its people.

“We want peace and secu­rity and noth­ing else. We could never want to start a war, “Erdo­gan said. “Turkey is a coun­try which is capa­ble of pro­tect­ing its peo­ple and bor­ders. No one should attempt to test our deter­mi­na­tion on the issue.”

Erdo­gan sug­gested the Syr­ian shelling was not acci­den­tal, say­ing that shells had fallen on Turk­ish ter­ri­tory on seven pre­vi­ous occa­sions since the civil war began.

Thursday’s mil­i­tary strikes against Syria and the par­lia­men­tary vote autho­riz­ing fur­ther action were Turkey’s strongest response yet to a series of seri­ous infrac­tions this year — includ­ing a June inci­dent in which Syria shot down a Turk­ish mil­i­tary jet, killing its two pilots.

Turkey said the plane was in inter­na­tional air­space, coun­ter­ing Syr­ian claims that it was in Syr­ian air­space. At the time, Turkey rein­forced its bor­der with anti-aircraft mis­siles and threat­ened to tar­get any approach­ing Syr­ian mil­i­tary ele­ments, but there was no retal­ia­tory attack or attempt to autho­rize mil­i­tary action.

In Wash­ing­ton, State Depart­ment spokes­woman Vic­to­ria Nuland said the U.S. believes Turkey’s response was pro­por­tional and appro­pri­ate to “strengthen the deter­rent effect so that these types of things don’t hap­pen again.”

Fawaz A. Gerges, head of the Mid­dle East Cen­ter at the Lon­don School of Eco­nom­ics, said the lat­est vio­lence shows just how eas­ily the sim­mer­ing ten­sions can ignite into a maelstrom.

“For months, the two sides have been engaged in low-intensity war­fare, and what we have seen is a dan­ger­ous esca­la­tion,” he said. “The poten­tial for an all-out war is out there and there is no doubt that even though nei­ther side wants it, a war could erupt because of a mis­cal­cu­la­tion on either side.”

Syria and Turkey have a fraught history.

Turkey, which shares a 566-mile (911-kilometer) fron­tier with Syria, nearly went to war with its neigh­bor over Syr­ian sup­port for Turk­ish Kur­dish rebels in the 1990s. Turkey threat­ened mil­i­tary action in 1998, forc­ing Syria to expel Kur­dish rebel leader Abdul­lah Ocalan.

The rela­tion­ship improved dra­mat­i­cally over the past decade since Bashar Assad came to power in 2000 and the two coun­tries reached out to build eco­nomic ties.

At the same time, Turkey, NATO’s biggest Mus­lim mem­ber, emerged as a regional power in the past decade, backed by a grow­ing econ­omy, emerg­ing demo­c­ra­tic cre­den­tials and his­tor­i­cal and cul­tural links to neigh­bors. It pur­sued prag­matic links with author­i­tar­ian lead­ers, but shifted to a pro-democracy posi­tion as upris­ings swept the Mid­dle East and North Africa.

The crack­down in Syria is acutely uncom­fort­able for Turkey, which does not want to be seen as a bystander to atroc­i­ties on its doorstep. At the same time, it is wary of sce­nar­ios such as a “buffer zone” inside Syria that could plunge its troops into bat­tles with Syr­ian forces, drag in other coun­tries and undo its image as a regional mediator.

Turks have grown weary of the bur­den of involve­ment in the Syr­ian con­flict, which includes the host­ing of 90,000 Syr­ian refugees in camps along the border.

Yet Turkey is still unwill­ing to go it alone in Syria, and is anx­ious for any inter­ven­tion to have the legit­i­macy con­ferred by a U.N. res­o­lu­tion or the involve­ment of a broad group of allies.

Turkey is mind­ful in part of incon­clu­sive ground mis­sions, mostly in the 1990s, against Kur­dish guer­ril­las based in north­ern Iraq, as well as the bit­ter lessons of being seen as an occu­py­ing power that are asso­ci­ated with the U.S.-led inva­sion in Iraq.

Reach­ing deeper into his­tory, Turkey is aware of Mideast sen­si­bil­i­ties over Ottoman rule over much of the region.

The Syr­ian con­flict has left Assad an inter­na­tional pariah, although Iran, Rus­sia and China have stood by their old ally. On a visit to Pak­istan on Thurs­day, Russ­ian For­eign Min­is­ter Sergey Lavrov expressed his government’s con­cern over the esca­la­tion of tensions.

Speak­ing at a news con­fer­ence in Islam­abad, Lavrov said Syria has assured Rus­sia that such an inci­dent will not hap­pen again.

“It is of great con­cern for us,” Lavrov said. “This sit­u­a­tion is dete­ri­o­rat­ing with every com­ing day.”

Posted by AP News on Oct 4 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.