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Turkey Recognizes Rebel Group as Head of Syria

Syrian rebels celebrating a takeover of Ceylanpinar, a Turkish border town, on Thursday.

By SEBNEM ARSU and TIM ARANGO

ISTANBUL — Turkey made it clear on Thursday that it officially recognized a newly formed rebel coalition as the legitimate leader of the Syrian people, an important step in the group’s effort to attract legitimacy and, it hopes, more weapons to bring about the end of President Bashar al-Assad’s rule.

Turkey “once again reiterates its recognition of the Syrian national coalition as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people,” Turkey’s foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, said in a speech at an Organization of Islamic Cooperation meeting in Djibouti, the tiny country on the Horn of Africa.

The announcement by Turkey, Syria’s northern neighbor and a haven for thousands of Syrian refugees and rebel fighters, was the third significant recognition of the new group this week.

On Monday, members of the Gulf Cooperation Council — Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Qatar and Kuwait — recognized the group, known as the National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces.

On Tuesday, France became the first Western country to do so, and it said it was considering providing arms to the insurgent groups within Syria that have been engaged in a 20-month-long war with the government that has claimed nearly 40,000 lives.

Mr. Davutoglu’s comments on Thursday followed a statement by Turkey’s Foreign Ministry earlier in the week in which it urged other nations to recognize the coalition.

That statement was meant to convey that Turkey itself recognized the new group, but it was not widely reported that way.

Turkey, along with Arab and Western countries, had pressured the Syrian political opposition, which had been seen as fractious and ineffectual, to realign itself as a broader coalition that included more officials from within Syria, which it did on Sunday after several days of wrangling in Doha, Qatar.

The previous group, the Syrian National Council, had been nurtured by Turkey and was based in Istanbul, but it came to be seen as a failure whose lack of credibility among the rebel fighting groups, loosely aligned under the banner of the Free Syrian Army, was an impediment to more aggressive involvement by other Arab and Western nations.

In his speech, Mr. Davutoglu cited the staggering human toll of Syria’s uprising, which began as peaceful protests in March 2011. He said more than 39,000 people had been killed, 2.5 million people had been displaced within Syria, and hundreds of thousands of refugees had fled to neighboring countries, including Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq.

In Turkey alone, he said, 120,000 Syrians are residing in camps, and nearly 70,000 others are living elsewhere in the country.

Mr. Davutoglu also reiterated Turkey’s contention that Mr. Assad, once a close friend of Turkey’s, had lost all credibility and legitimacy because of his government’s repression of the opposition.

“The reason behind the ongoing tragedy is the Syrian regime that has refused to acknowledge the legitimate demands of the Syrians and has chosen to try to rule its people by brutal force,” he said.

Turkey has been perhaps the most vocal and aggressive supporter of the Syrian opposition, and it has long pushed for more international engagement in the conflict, which could be forthcoming as the new opposition coalition continues to gain legitimacy. On Thursday, according to The Associated Press, France’s foreign minister suggested that “defensive weapons” be provided to the rebels, and that the European Union should reconsider its arms embargo against Syria.

As the war has dragged on, Turkey’s support for the Syrian rebels has become a domestic issue for the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, which is facing a backlash from its own public over the mounting toll of the war because the fighting has brought cross-border trade to a halt and the influx of refugees has raised tensions in border communities.

A version of this article appeared in print on November 16, 2012, on page A16 of the New York edition with the headline: Turks Grant Recognition To Coalition Of Syrians.

via Turkey Recognizes Rebel Group as Head of Syria – NYTimes.com.

November 16, 2012
Syrian jailed in Turkey for spying on refugee camps

By Ece Toksabay

ISTANBUL | Wed Nov 14, 2012 12:53pm EST

(Reuters) – A Syrian man was jailed for 12 and a half years in Turkey on Wednesday for espionage, in what media reports said was a plot to abduct former Syrian military officers who had defected and were sheltering in refugee camps.

Sbahi Hamdo, described as a professor at the Faculty of Medicine in the war-ravaged city of Aleppo, was accused of taking photographs of refugee camps and military facilities in the southern Turkish province of Hatay, the state-run Anatolian news agency reported.

He was arrested in October with a Turkish man, identified only as Mursel A, the news agency said.

A court convicted both men of “obtaining secret state information with the aim of political and military espionage.” The Turkish man was sentenced to six years and three months in jail, Anatolian said.

Officials at the court and Hatay’s governor’s office could not immediately be reached for comment.

Describing Hamdo as a Syrian intelligence operative nicknamed “Doctor”, the Today’s Zaman newspaper said he was involved in a plot to abduct senior Syrian military officers holed up in a refugee camp in Hatay after defecting from President Bashar al-Assad’s forces.

Both men denied the charges. Hamdo said he had been trying to track down a relative, Anatolian reported.

Dozens of Syrian military officers have defected to Turkey during the 20-month civil war, some of them joining the opposition push to oust Assad.

Around 120,000 civilians are also sheltering in refugee camps in Hatay and other provinces of southern Turkey bordering Syria.

(Editing by Nick Tattersall and Robin Pomeroy)

via Syrian jailed in Turkey for spying on refugee camps | Reuters.

November 15, 2012
For third day in row, Syrian jets bomb near Turkey

Syrian Air Force bombers leave behind billowlng smoke in the Syrian town of Ras al-Ayn, as seen from the Turkish town of Ceylanpinar, Tuesday

THE NEW YORK TIMES

PARIS — Syrian authorities ordered airstrikes for a third consecutive day close to the tense Turkish border today, and said a French decision to recognize and consider arming a newly formed Syrian rebel coalition was an “immoral” act “encouraging the destruction of Syria.”

The French move was depicted by analysts as an attempt to inject momentum into a broad Western and Arab effort to build a viable and effective opposition to hasten the end of a stalemated civil war which has further destabilized the Middle East.

For its part, the United States today signaled a reluctance to go beyond its characterization of the rebel alliance as a legitimate representative of the Syrian people, rather than as their sole representative.

Speaking in Perth, Australia, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Washington first wanted to see the coalition influencing events on the ground.

“As the Syrian opposition takes these steps and demonstrates its effectiveness in advancing the cause of a unified, democratic, pluralistic Syria, we will be prepared to work with them to deliver assistance to the Syrian people,” news reports quoted her saying.

At the same time, she announced $30 million in American humanitarian aid to feed people affected by the civil war, bringing the total American assistance to almost $200 million.

The airstrikes today underscored the urgency of the diplomatic maneuvers. Journalists along the 550-mile border between Turkey and Syria near the Turkish border town of Ceylanpinar said they witnessed a Syrian airstrike in the adjacent Syrian town of Ras al-Ain, where rebels say they have ousted troops loyal to Mr. Assad. It was the third such strike there in as many days.

In response, Reuters reported, Turkey scrambled fighter jets to its southeastern border with Syria, recalling Turkey’s insistence that it will not refrain from a tougher reaction against Syria.

The official SANA news agency in Syria made no direct reference to the Western moves. But the deputy foreign minister, Faisal Muqdad, told the Agence France-Presse news agency that the establishment of the opposition coalition in Doha, Qatar, was a “ declaration of war.” “We read the Doha document and they reject any dialogue with the government.”

Referring to the French recognition of the alliance, he said: “Allow me to use the word, this is an immoral position. They are supporting killers, terrorists and they are encouraging the destruction of Syria.”The announcement by President François Hollande on Tuesday made France the first Western country to fully embrace the new coalition, which came together this past weekend under Western pressure after days of difficult negotiations in Doha, Qatar.

The six Arab countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council, including key opposition supporters Qatar and Saudi Arabia, recognized the rebel coalition on Monday as the legitimate Syrian government. Political analysts called Mr. Hollande’s announcement an important moment in the Syrian conflict, which began as a peaceful Arab Spring uprising in March 2011. It was harshly suppressed by Mr. Assad, turned into a civil war and has left nearly 40,000 Syrians dead, displaced about 2.5 million and forced more than 400,000 to flee to neighboring countries, according to international relief agencies.

“It’s certainly another page of the story,” Augustus Richard Norton, a professor of international relations at Boston University and an expert on Middle East political history, said of the French announcement. “I think it’s important. But it will be much more important if other countries follow suit. I don’t think we’re quite there yet.”

Andrew J. Tabler, a Syria expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said that the new coalition would have to create a secure zone in Syria to be successful, and that such a step would require support from the United States, which was instrumental in the negotiations that led to the group’s creation but has not yet committed to giving it full recognition.

What the French have done, Mr. Tabler said, is significant because they have started the process of broader recognition, putting pressure on the group to succeed. “They’ve decided to back this umbrella organization and hope that it has some kind of political legitimacy and keep it from going to extremists,” he said. “It’s a gamble. The gamble is that it will stiffen the backs of the opposition.”

France’s statement also was a clear reflection of frustration with the growing death toll and military stalemate in Syria. It came a week after the re-election of President Obama, who had clearly been unwilling to consider any military policy that could hurt his prospects.

Mr. Hollande’s announcement came as the rebel coalition’s newly chosen leader, Sheik Ahmed Moaz al-Khatib, a former imam of the historic Umayyad Mosque in Damascus and a respected figure in Syria, made a broad appeal to Western and Arab countries for recognition and military aid. Foreign ministers of the Arab League, while approving the new group as the “legitimate representative of the Syrian opposition,” have not agreed on recognizing it as a provisional government to replace Mr. Assad.

France, the former colonial power in Syria, has been pressing for a more committed international effort to help the anti-Assad movement.

via For third day in row, Syrian jets bomb near Turkey – Worcester Telegram & Gazette – telegram.com.

November 15, 2012
NATO will defend Turkey in conflict with Syria, says chief

Syrian jets and helicopters attacked a rebel-held town just feet from the Turkish border, sending scores of civilians fleeing into Turkey. NBCNews.com’s Dara Brown reports.

By NBC News staff and wire services

NATO will defend alliance member Turkey, which struck back after mortar rounds fired from Syria landed inside its border, the alliance’s Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said at a meeting in Prague on Monday.

“NATO as an organization will do what it takes to protect and defend Turkey, our ally. We have all plans in place to make sure that we can protect and defend Turkey and hopefully that way also deter so that attacks on Turkey will not take place,” he said.

Rasmussen also welcomed a weekend agreement by Syrian opposition groups to put aside differences and form a new coalition.

In the 20 months since the revolt against President Bashar Assad began, one by one the sleepy Turkish towns and villages along the 550-mile frontier have watched helplessly as the Syrian war edges closer.

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Israel fires into Syria for second day, scores ‘direct hits’

The proximity is no more obvious than in Ceylanpinar, where what was a single town under the Ottoman empire was split after World War I, with part remaining in the new Turkish republic and part coming under French rule in what would become Syria.

Ras al-Ain, as the town on the Syrian side of the frontier is known, was overrun on Thursday by anti-Assad rebels advancing into Syria’s northeast, home to many ethnic Kurds. Fighting has sent thousands of refugees fleeing for safety in Turkey.

No sooner had the rebels raised their flag over Ras al-Ain after a fierce battle, however, than Syrian government tanks and artillery began firing back into the town in what has become an all-too-familiar pattern of the civil war.

Assad’s forces unleashed their air power on Monday. A warplane screeched along the frontier and bombs fell close to the border fence, sending scores more Syrians scrambling over into Turkey. Helicopters strafed targets for a second day.

Turkey does not want to become embroiled in a regional war, but risks being drawn in by domestic pressures. As frustration grows among leaders in Ankara at world powers’ failure to stop the bloodshed, so too are Turkey’s citizens becoming impatient with their own government’s inability to keep them safe.

Walls ‘riddled with bullet holes’
Flat-roofed Syrian and Turkish houses abut the barbed-wire fence that divides the two modern towns, whose combined population is 80,000 and between which Arabs and Kurds have long maintained family and social bonds.

Though crossing the frontier has often been limited by official restrictions, friends and relatives exchange greetings through the wire as though chatting over a backyard fence.

Loitering near the wire is now a risky pastime, however. Kayakiran’s uncle, Mehmet Ali, recalled how close the war came when, after rebels took Ras al-Ain last week, he stepped outside his home in Ceylanpinar to phone a friend over the border.

PhotoBlog: Syrians flee into Turkey after Syrian jet bombs border town

“I wanted to see if he was alive,” he said.

“I was just putting the phone to my ear when the bullet hit right here,” he said, pointing to a street sign nailed to the wall of his house.

The stray bullet, fired from across the fence, left a small dent in the metal panel inches from where his head had been.

“That’s nothing,” said a neighbor joining the conversation. “My wall is riddled with bullet holes.”

Others have been less fortunate; two people in Ceylanpinar were wounded last week by stray bullets fired from Syria, including a teenage boy who was shot in the chest.

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Around 60 miles west along the border, in the Turkish town of Akcakale, five civilians were killed last month when a mortar fired from Syria struck their home.

It was the most serious cross-border incident since the fighting began, spurring Turkish calls for more robust action from world powers, including the possible deployment by NATO of Patriot surface-to-air missiles on the Turkey-Syria border.

Turkey says it has fired back in retaliation, but its calls for a buffer zone to be set up inside Syria have so far failed to gain traction among reluctant Western powers.

As in Akcakale, many of those in Ceylanpinar living near the fence have abandoned their homes for the time being. The neighborhood resembles a ghost town, where Turkish soldiers in trenches train their guns on Syria.

Turkish police trucks armed with water cannons, typically used in the past to suppress the restive ethnic Kurdish population of southeastern Turkey, including Ceylanpinar, now patrol the Syrian border.

Police warn children not to play near the fence. Schools have been closed since last week, and over loudspeakers on Monday authorities urged people to stay indoors.

“We’ve locked our doors and left,” said Huseyin Albayrak, a neighbor living a few doors down from Kayakiran. “I’ve sent my wife and kids to my father further inside the town.

“Turkey needs to do something to protect its people.”

NATO solidarity
According to Al Jazeera, Rasmussen told reporters in Prague on Monday that NATO will stand by Turkey and consider requests for a possible deployment of anti-aircraft missiles.

“Turkey can rely on NATO solidarity, we have more plans in place to defend and protect Turkey, our ally, if needed,” Rasmussen said, according to Al Jazeera.

The NATO secretary-general added that the military alliance had not received a request from Turkey to deploy U.S.-made Patriot anti-aircraft missiles.

“But obviously if such a request is to be forwarded, the NATO council will have to consider it,” Rasmussen added, according to Al Jazeera.

November 15, 2012
Archaeologists Explore Site on Syria-Turkey Border

By Christopher Torchia

November 11, 2012 8:54AM

Despite the Syrian war, archaeologists are hard at work at the site of an ancient city called Karkemish. The strategic city’s historical importance is long known to scholars because of references in ancient texts. Despite the dangers, archaeologists say they felt secure during a 10-week season of excavation on the Turkish side of Karkemish.

Few archaeological sites seem as entwined with conflict, ancient and modern, as the city of Karkemish. The scene of a battle mentioned in the Bible, it lies smack on the border between Turkey and Syria, where civil war rages today. Twenty-first century Turkish sentries occupy an acropolis dating back more than 5,000 years, and the ruins were recently demined. Visible from crumbling, earthen ramparts, a Syrian rebel flag flies in a town that regime forces fled just months ago.

A Turkish-Italian team is conducting the most extensive excavations there in nearly a century, building on the work of British Museum teams that included T.E. Lawrence, the adventurer known as Lawrence of Arabia. The plan is to open the site along the Euphrates river to tourists in late 2014.

The strategic city, its importance long known to scholars because of references in ancient texts, was under the sway of Hittites and other imperial rulers and independent kings. However, archaeological investigation there was halted by World War I, and then by hostilities between Turkish nationalists and French colonizers from Syria who built machine gun nests in its ramparts. Part of the frontier was mined in the 1950s, and in later years, creating deadly obstacles to archaeological inquiry at a site symbolic of modern strife and intrigue.

via Archaeologists Explore Site on Syria-Turkey Border | Sci-Tech Today.

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November 12, 2012
Turkey approves military deal with Qatar, Saudi Arabia amid Syrian conflict

Parliament recently approved two separate agreements with Qatar and Saudi Arabia — two of the staunchest states seeking the fall of the Syrian regime, along with Turkey — regarding cooperation in the training of military personnel among the three states, Today’s Zaman reported.

The approval of the two agreements, which have been obtained by Today’s Zaman, came on the heels of ongoing tensions along the Turkish-Syrian border and escalating military strikes between Turkey and Syria.

Damascus accuses foreign powers — including Qatar, Saudi Arabia and neighboring Turkey — of supporting Syrian opposition forces struggling to topple embattled President Bashar al-Assad, and of destroying the stability of Syria and meddling in its internal affairs.

Turkey and the two Sunni Arab states have adopted a similar stance regarding the Syrian conflict in the diplomatic sphere. However, the approval of the two agreements amid the ongoing Syrian conflict is a development that could add a new dimension to the 19-month-old crisis.

The Military Training Cooperation agreement between Turkey and Qatar was signed in the Turkish capital of Ankara on July 2 and published in the Official Gazette on Nov. 7, with Law No. 3849.

According to Article 1 of the agreement with Qatar, the purpose of the agreement is to establish cooperation mechanisms between Turkey and Qatar in the field of military training.

The agreement, which was signed by Qatari Army Chief Gen. Hamad Bin Ali Al Attiyah, and his Turkish counterpart Gen. Necdet Özel, aims to enhance and consolidate friendly relations existing between the two countries.

Article 4 of the agreement specifies areas of military cooperation at War Colleges, the Gülhane Military Medical Academy and the Mapping General Command.

According to the same article, training areas and the education of personnel will also include the gendarmerie, the coast guard and border security.

Article 4 states the main areas of cooperation as follows: “Participation in joint exercises, exchange of delegations, visiting harbors and docking, exchange of information regarding improvement of training, exchange of information on military history, military archives and military publications, cooperation in logistics training, cooperation on peace support, counterterrorism, humanitarian relief, countering sea robbery and piracy and exchange of personnel.”

According to Article 3 of the agreement, the General Staffs of both countries are responsible for the training of personnel, which should be provided in accordance with the criteria set by the states.

In line with this agreement, ahead of any request to send personnel for training, notification will be given to the receiving state in March of the year prior to the beginning of the training program at the latest.

The agreement emphasizes that cooperation should occur within the framework of respect for the laws of the countries, and on the basis of reciprocity and mutual benefit.

According to Article 6, the training of guest personnel should be provided in conformity with the programs of the military institutions or units where the training is provided. However, the article specifies, “If the subjects cover certain issues related to national security, some restrictions may be imposed.”

Turkey’s Military Training Cooperation agreement with Saudi Arabia was signed in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, on May 29, and was published in the Official Gazette on Oct. 10, with Law No. 3634.

The agreement with Saudi Arabia underlines the importance of enhancing friendly relations existing between the two nations and of cooperation in the field of military training, confirming that cooperation between the two countries promotes international peace and stability.

The agreement, which was signed by Saudi Brig. Gen. Abdulaziz Marzouq Al Johani and his Turkish counterpart, Brig. Gen. Salih Sevil, chief of the training division, says Turkey and Saudi Arabia should set out the specialist and technical courses (operations, logistics, intelligence, etc.) to be held annually at their military centers.

via Turkey approves military deal with Qatar, Saudi Arabia amid Syrian conflict – Trend.Az.

November 12, 2012