Category: Syria

Syria Lashes Out at Jordan and Turkey

By RICK GLADSTONE

Syria lashed out at Turkey and Jordan on Thursday for what it called their duplicitous work in fomenting the Syrian rebellion, accusing the Turkish prime minister of chronic lies and telling the Jordanians they were “playing with fire” in letting insurgents arm and train on their soil — a possible hint of retaliation.

The criticisms in the state news media appeared to be part of an intensified propaganda response to new rebel gains in the two-year-old conflict and President Bashar al-Assad’s further isolation.

It included snippets of an interview that Mr. Assad had given to a Turkish television station, in which he also denounced the Arab League for granting Syria’s seat to the opposition coalition bent on overthrowing him.

Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who was once close to Mr. Assad, has turned into an ardent enemy and repeatedly called for his departure. Turkey is also housing more than 250,000 Syrian refugees and is helping the Free Syrian Army insurgent group, although the Turks insist they are not providing weapons. Syria, which shares a 550-mile border with Turkey, has frequently accused Turkey of arming the rebels.

“Erdogan has not said a single word of truth since the beginning of the crisis in Syria,” Mr. Assad said in the interview with the Ulusal Kanal television channel in Turkey that is to be broadcast on Friday. A brief preview was posted on YouTube.

Mr. Assad appeared to reserve special criticism for the Arab League, which suspended Syria’s membership in November 2011 and awarded the vacant seat to the National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people, in a formal ceremony on March 26.

“Real legitimacy is not accorded by organizations or foreign officials,” he said. “All these theatrics have no value in our eyes.”

Syria state television, citing reports in The New York Times and other Western news media about Jordan’s role in helping the rebels, said they showed Jordan had “a hand in training terrorists and then facilitating their entry into Syria,” according to a translation by The Associated Press. It quoted state radio as saying Jordan was “playing with fire.”

The Syrian newspaper Al Thawra, also citing those Western news reports, said in a front-page editorial that the Jordanian government could not claim neutrality while actively supporting the insurgents and collaborating with the United States, Saudi Arabia and others hostile to Mr. Assad. “Their attempts to put out the flame that the leaked information caused will fail in allowing them to continue their game of ambiguity because they have gotten really close to the volcanic crater,” the editorial said.

In what appeared to be a veiled threat of retaliation, the editorial also said “it is difficult to prevent sparks from crossing the border.”

There was no comment from Jordan’s government on the warnings, which have come as insurgent activity in southern Syria near the Jordanian border has escalated and posed a new threat to Assad loyalists there. In the past few weeks, rebels have seized territory near the southern city of Dara’a, where the uprising against Mr. Assad first began.

At the same time, Jordan is facing an acute refugee crisis caused by the Syrian conflict. There are at least 320,000 registered refugees in the country, according to the United Nations, and many more who entered Jordan without registering.

United Nations officials have been warning that the refugee crisis could overwhelm Syria’s neighbors, who have collectively absorbed more than 1.3 million Syrians since the conflict began.

On Thursday in Lebanon, home to about 500,000 Syrian refugees, the commissioner general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, Filippo Grandi, said the refugee flows caused by the conflict were becoming “unmanageable and dangerous.”

Mr. Grandi’s agency is responsible for Palestinian refugees, a legacy of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Lebanon, which has a population of four million, is already home to about 460,000 Palestinian refugees, and the Lebanese are increasingly concerned that Syria’s Palestinian refugee population of 530,000 could surge into Lebanon if fighting intensifies in the Damascus area, where many of them live. So far, however, Mr. Grandi said, more than 90 percent have stayed in Syria.

Hala Droubi contributed reporting from Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and Thanassis Cambanis from Beirut, Lebanon.

A version of this article appeared in print on April 5, 2013, on page A8 of the New York edition with the headline: Jordanians And Turks Are Focus Of Syria’s Ire.

via Syria Lashes Out at Jordan and Turkey – NYTimes.com.

April 6, 2013
Turkey: John Kerry to talk about Syria with PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan

Secretary of State John F. Kerry will head to Turkey before the end of this week to discuss the continuing Syrian conflict, which has just entered its second year.
Photo by: J. Scott Applewhite
Secretary of State John F. Kerry (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
A Turkish official confirmed the upcoming meeting with the Reuters news agency and said it will likely take place before Sunday.

The meeting comes as The Guardian reports another 100 people were killed in a Damascus neighborhood by warplane strikes. The death toll in the ongoing conflict has been estimated at 70,000, the United Nations reported.

Mr. Kerry’s stop in Turkey is part of a Western Europe and Asian visit. And his talks with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan will be closely watched. The United States sees Turkey as a crucial player for helping rebel fighters oust Syrian President Bashar Assad and implement a new government.

“Mr. Kerry will visit Turkey,” said the unnamed Turkish spokesman in the Reuters report. “The date is not clear yet but possibly it will take place either on Friday or on Saturday.”

The State Department did not comment in the Reuters report.

via Turkey: John Kerry to talk about Syria with PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan – Washington Times.

April 4, 2013
‘Turkey shot self in foot with its hostile anti-Syria policy’

The leader of Turkey’s main opposition party Kemal Kilicdaroglu says that Ankara has shot itself in the foot with its hostile anti-Syria policy.

Kemal Kilicdaroglu, leader of the main Turkish opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP)

During a speech in the southern city of Adana, the leader of the Republican People’s Party (CHP) condemned Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s stance towards Damascus.

Kilicdaroglu accused Erdogan of siding with Saudi Arabia and Qatar against the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad.

He said that the Turkish government’s stance towards Syria is not in line with his country’s national interests, but instead serves that of the US, Germany, and France.

The opposition leader further warned Ankara against anti-Syria policies by saying that they would leave Turkey isolated in the region. He said Turkey should focus on gaining allies in the region instead of turning them away.

Qatar has recently allowed the Syrian opposition to open an embassy in its capital Doha. This is while the original Syrian embassy in Doha remains closed.

In February, Kilicdaroglu criticized Erdogan’s policy regarding Syria, calling it a “grave mistake.” He also said that as a result of Ankara’s financial and military support for the Syrian opposition, increasing numbers of Syrian people were losing their lives.

Protests have been held in Turkey against the government’s anti-Syria policies over the past months.

Syria has been experiencing unrest since March 2011. Many people, including large numbers of Army and security personnel, have been killed in the violence.

The Syrian government has said that the chaos is being orchestrated from outside the country, and that a very large number of the militants operating in the country are foreign nationals.

Several international human rights organizations have accused foreign-sponsored militants of committing war crimes.

SZH/HN

via PressTV – ‘Turkey shot self in foot with its hostile anti-Syria policy’.

March 31, 2013
Syria refugee crisis: One million and counting

Syria refugee crisis: One million and counting

Beirut, 24 days ago

One million people have fled Syria’s civil war, piling pressure on the country’s neighbours who are struggling to support them, the United Nations refugee agency said on Wednesday.

Around half the refugees are children, most of them aged under 11, and the numbers leaving are mounting every week, UNHCR added.

“With a million people in flight, millions more displaced internally, and thousands of people continuing to cross the border every day, Syria is spiralling towards full-scale disaster,” UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres said in a statement.

“We are doing everything we can to help, but the international humanitarian response capacity is dangerously stretched. This tragedy has to be stopped.”

Nearly two years ago, Syrians started trickling out of the country when President Bashar al-Assad’s forces started shooting at pro-democracy protests.

The uprising has since turned into an increasingly sectarian struggle between armed rebels and government soldiers and militias. An estimated 70,000 people have been killed.

UNHCR said the number of Syrians quitting their country has increased dramatically since the beginning of the year with more than 400,000 – nearly half the total figure – since January 1.

They arrive traumatised, without possessions and having lost members of their families, it added.

Most have fled to Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, Iraq and Egypt and some arrive in North Africa and Europe.

Lebanon – the country closest to Syria’s embattled capital of Damascus – is the smallest of the country’s neighbours but has received the most refugees.

Including Syrian workers and self-supporting Syrian families, one in five people in Lebanon is now Syrian.

Refugee flows into Lebanon have doubled to 4,400 a day in the past three weeks, UNHCR representative in Lebanon Ninette Kelley told Reuters in an interview.

But despite pledges of $1.5 billion by international donors for a U.N. response plan to help Syria’s displaced, only 25 per cent has been funded, UNHCR said.

In Jordan, energy, water, health and education services are being strained to the limit, the agency added. Turkey has spent more than $600 million setting up 17 refugee camps, with more under construction.

There is no end in sight for Syria’s civil war and international powers are divided over how to respond to it. Russia and Shi’ite Iran support their historical ally Assad while the United States and Sunni Muslim Gulf countries back the opposition.

Both Damascus and the opposition have said they will consider peace talks but no meetings have been arranged. – Reuters

via Syria refugee crisis: One million and counting.

March 31, 2013
Al-Jaafari: Syria opposes the current text of the Arms’ Trade Treaty

Syria’s Permanent Representative to the UN Dr. Bashar al-Jaafari said that Syria has sought and will seek the legislation of arms trade due to the risk posed by illicit arms trade on international security and peace.

During the closing session of the UN conference on the arms trade treaty, al-Jaafari said that Syria opposes the current text of the treaty as it doesn’t address foreign occupation, the right to self-determination of people under occupation, and the crimes of aggression, in addition to not having a clear article on the absolute ban of providing weapons to terrorist elements and groups.

Al-Jaafari pointed out that Syria exerted big efforts to bring the delegations’ different points of view together to reach an unanimously draft of the arms trade treaty as the mission was not easy due to the deep differences among the member states.

He said ” My country’s delegation worked hard to reach an agreement that preserves the rights of all the countries and tried to approximate the points of view through holding several meetings with a number of delegations and through proposing a number of essential points which we want that the treaty to include as it becomes balanced.”

He added “My country opposes the current text of the treaty for the coming reasons:

First: The treaty ignored the proposals of a number of countries including Syria on the inclusion of a reference in the text to the foreign occupation and the inalienable rights of the people under the foreign occupation to self-determination, as the Israeli occupation still occupies Arab territories in the Syrian Golan, Palestine and Lebanon.

Second :The selectivity and transparency in the supervising procedures on armament don’t constitute a balanced and overall approach as it hinders the international community of committing to disarmament.

Third: the current teary is an interference in the Security Council’s affairs.

Fourth: The treaty is not unanimous as it doesn’t take into consideration the stances and views of a number of countries, among them Syria.

Fifth: The text doesn’t include a frank paragraph on the categorically ban of supplying weapons to the armed terrorist groups and members.

Al-Jaafari asserted that ignoring this dangerous issue which my country is suffering from due to providing the armed terrorist groups with arms by some countries is completely unacceptable by Syria as it is considered a flagrant violation of the international principles and charters with the aim of liquidating any hope of a political and peaceful solution to the crisis in Syria, based on the UN Security Council resolutions No. 2042 and 2043.

Sixth: The treaty ignored the identification section to tackle some ambiguity on some idioms which have been mentioned in the treaty.

Seventh: the text ignored an important issue that is the aggression crime which is unanimously identified and agreed on by the international community based on the UN General Secretariat Resolutions No. 3314 for 1974.

Al-Jaafari stressed that the objection of one delegation on the draft means that there is no consensus, adding that “We support consensus on a good treaty, not on an inapplicable treaty which would be used in the future to put pressures on some countries.

via Al-Jaafari: Syria opposes the current text of the Arms’ Trade Treaty.

March 31, 2013
Syrian Financial Capital’s Loss Is Turkey’s Gain

Syrian refugees are pictured at Kilis refugee camp in Gaziantep, Turkey, on Nov. 1. An estimated 150,000 Syrians are reported to be living in the Turkish border town.

Maurizio Gambarini/DPA/Landov

There is a brain drain in Syria, an exodus of the skilled and the educated as the Syrian revolt grinds into a third year.

The health care system is one casualty, as hospitals and clinics are shelled and doctors flee the country.

The business community is another — particularly in Aleppo, Syria’s largest city and once the country’s industrial and financial hub.

As Aleppo was dragged into the war, many in the business community fled to southern Turkey, less than a two-hour drive away. Gaziantep, a Turkish border town, has become a new hub for Syrian businessmen.

At the recent opening of a new restaurant in Gaziantep, the excitement among Syrian exiles was all about the white creamy sauce served with the spicy chicken.

Syrians flocked to the recent opening of a new restaurant in Gaziantep serving a creamy garlic sauce known as creme toum. It’s a sign that some Syrians are beginning to think about Gaziantep as more than just a temporary home.

Deborah Amos/NPR

“Garlic, very important with chicken,” insisted customer Ahmad Showah, who has longed for Syrian cuisine since he came to Turkey seven months ago. For him, the traditional Syrian sauce was part nostalgia, part identity — a powerful reminder of home.

“Garlic, eggs, oil and spices,” said restaurant owner Mohamad Serjeh, listing the ingredients of Syria’s “special” sauce as he piled plates with crispy chicken. Serjeh brought his stainless steel chicken roasters from his ruined shop in Aleppo and opened the first Syrian restaurant in this Turkish border town.

More than 150,000 Syrians now live in Gaziantep, with more arriving. So Serjeh had a full house on opening day.

“There are about 17,000 Syrians here who have the wherewithal to buy this kind of food,” Serjeh said, “so we hope for a good success.”

That’s his rough calculation of Syrian exiles with means in just one Turkish town. Official data from the Turkish banking agency shows that Syrians have deposited almost $4 billion in Turkish banks — some of the cash transferred across the border on the backs of mules, packed by Syrians in a hurry to get money out. As the war has intensified, more than 400 factories have shut down.

Fuad Barazi is among the latest arrivals in Gaziantep. He owned a furniture store, a once-prosperous family business, in Aleppo. Barazi stayed as long as he could, caring for his elderly parents while delivering humanitarian aid. But a few weeks ago, he decided he had to get out of Aleppo.

“Last few months, it was devastating — horrible, actually. The bombs very near to us, power, no water. Also, and I have a sick dad, so I had to come,” Barazi said.

For the moment, he and his family are recovering from their ordeal, and not thinking of how long to stay in Turkey. But Barazi and others like him from Syria’s business elite are wondering when they can go back and rebuild the country’s economy — and, more broadly, what kind of country will Syria become.

The answers will determine Syria’s recovery, said Soli Ozul, a Turkish political commentator.

“When the best leave, then you end up with the brutes,” Ozul said. “I just don’t know how much of that elite went out and how many of them will want to return after, at least, there is a regime change.”

For now, Aleppo’s loss is Turkey’s economic gain, certainly in Gaziantep, a city with historical links to Syria. In Ottoman times, Gaziantep was part of Aleppo province.

And once again, the Turkish border city is intertwined with Syria. The Sanko Park mall was built a few years ago to cater to Syrians who easily crossed the border to shop on weekends. Now, more than 30,000 Syrian businessmen have come to Turkey to escape the war — attracted by government policies that allow them to open factories and offices and make lucrative deals, said Barazi, the furniture store owner.

Can Aleppo recover if the business community stays in Gaziantep?

“I guess not, because the businessman plays a major role in Aleppo,” Barazi said. “Aleppo will not survive without the businessmen.”

But even Barazi can’t say yet whether he will go back to rebuild what was once Syria’s financial capital.

March 30, 2013