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Syrian opposition to discuss whether to join peace talks in Istanbul

By Agencies

Syria’s opposition coalition will meet in Istanbul on May 23 to discuss whether to participate in a US and Russian-brokered conference aimed at ending the Syrian conflict, Turkish Today’s Zaman reported Monday.

The coalition has so far failed to reach an agreement on participation in the peace conference, which Washington and Moscow want to hold by the end of this month.

An insider of the group has told reporters that unless the conference will work on the departure of President Bashar al-Assad, the opposition will not attend it as it will cost the coalition’s credibility with the Syrian people.

Meanwhile, the report said the coalition’s 60-member general assembly will also elect a new head and discuss the fate of its provisional prime minister Ghassan Hitto at the meeting.

via Syrian opposition to discuss whether to join peace talks in Istanbul – WORLD – Globaltimes.cn.

May 14, 2013
Turkey’s Syria policies are criticized as Erdogan prepares to meet with Obama – The Washington Post

By Associated Press, Published: May 13

REYHANLI, Turkey — Anti-government protests flared for a third day on Monday in Turkish town devastated by two powerful car bombs near the Syrian border, and some Turks accused their leader of putting the nation’s security at risk by backing the rebels fighting Syria’s government.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey will “not refrain” from responding to twin car bombings it has blamed on Syria, but that his government will be cautious and avoid being drawn into its neighbor’s civil war.

via Turkey’s Syria policies are criticized as Erdogan prepares to meet with Obama – The Washington Post.

May 14, 2013
‘Turkey won’t act on Syria without US blessing’

Despite harsh rhetoric, Turkey won’t take any action against the Syrian government of Bashar Assad without getting a go-ahead from Washington, Middle East expert, Jeremy Salt, told RT.

Turkish authorities have detained nine people in connection with Saturday’s deadly car bombings in a town near the Syrian border.

Two blasts killed 46 and injured over 100 as Turkey was quick to blame Syrian intelligence for the attack, but the government in Damascus denies all the accusations.

Middle Eastern history and politics professor at Bilkent University in Turkey, Jeremy Salt, says it’s the Islamists among the Syrian rebels, who look the only party to benefit from the attacks.

RT: Why did the Turkish government label the Syrian government as the “usual suspects” in the bombings – before the investigation even started?

Jeremy Salt: The Turkish government claims it arrested nine people and it claims to have evidence that they’re connected with the Syrian intelligence service. We haven’t seen that evidence yet. We’ll have to wait and see what it says. At this stage, it seems to me quite inconceivable that Syria would do that because if we look at what’s happening on the ground right now. The Syrian army is rolling back the insurgency. The insurgents have taken huge losses in the last few months, in particular, around Damascus, near the Lebanese border, and even around Halab – Aleppo – and in the North Syria. And along with this is the fact that the Americans are changing pace and are going into negotiations with Russia to come out with a solution. So it doesn’t make any sense that Syria would do that right now.

RT: Just in the last few hours, Syria’s information minister said that Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan’s responsible for this by playing a “dangerous game with al-Qaeda”. What did he mean by that?

JS: We know for a fact that – because the main Islamist fighting group in Syria has admitted this – al-Qaeda in Iraq and Jabhat al-Nusra in Syria are one in the same. And all the fighting groups in Syria are Islamist and they’re working tactically with Jabhat al-Nusra. So, al-Qaeda is in Syria. We know that. It’s now confirmed, but this was more or less suspected from the start. What we’re seeing now is kind of charge and counter-charge as people try to put the blame for this on to someone else. My feeling about this – and obvious kind of guess is that the party responsible for this is one of the armed groups because if anyone has a reason to try to heat up the situation and drag outside countries it would be them. They’re in very serious problems right now.

Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. (AFP Photo / Adem Altan)

RT: Turkey’s Interior Minister urged the international community to get involved against Syrian President Assad. Doesn’t this undermine the peace efforts proposed by Russia, US and the UK?

JS: The whole point is that they (the international community) have been deeply involved for more than two years and they haven’t succeeded in their objective, which is ultimately to overthrow the Syrian government – to bring it down. And so they’re still kind of chanting the same refrain, but there’s actually no possibility that the Syrian government can be brought down without direct intervention from outside governments. And the emphasis on Bashar al-Assad takes the emphasis where it should be, which is the Syrian army. Because the Syrian army is fighting – this is a national project. The foot soldiers in the Syrian army are mainly Sunni Muslims and, so, they have a national spirit. And that kind of refrain that the outside government should do more, should send in arms, should declare a no-fly zone are only going to worsen the situation.

What we clearly need now is progress towards negotiating a solution, which is the path Obama has taken. And I think, in spite everything we’ve seen in the last couple of weeks – the chemical weapons propaganda, the Israeli attack – that I don’t think Obama is going allow himself to be drawn into this.

RT: Turkey says it will take “every kind of measure” in response. What could that be?

One has to take it seriously, but the fact is that [Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip] Erdogan is going to Washington this week and Syria will be on top of the agenda and my feeling is that Turkey won’t do anything by itself – that if Obama won’t bite, if he won’t commit America to take a more involved position over Syria, I don’t think that Turkey will do anything.

Now, the key issue here is what kind of evidence are they going to come up with. Will they come up with any evidence that’s going to convince us that this, in fact, was an action carried out by the Syrian intelligence services. So there are many many unknowns right now and, of course, everything is going to depend on the outcome of the talks in Wahington between Obama and Erdogan.

via ‘Turkey won’t act on Syria without US blessing’ — RT Op-Edge.

May 13, 2013
PKK Kurdish deal with Turkey may worry Iran and Syria
By Guney YildizBBC Turkish

This image shows a PKK fighter in the Turkish mountains

Rebels of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) have begun leaving south-eastern Turkey for their main bases in northern Iraq, but there is no talk of disarmament yet.

Instead, several top commanders of the PKK have said they will keep and even consolidate their forces.

So what will the thousands of well-trained militants in Qandil, Zap and other PKK-controlled areas of northern Iraq do, as the truce with Turkey holds?

This is probably the question the Iranian and Syrian governments have been asking since the imprisoned leader of the PKK, Abdullah Ocalan, who is negotiating a peace deal with Turkey, urged militants to withdraw from inside Turkey.

The group has two sister parties in Iran and Syria with their own armed wings: the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK), which is fighting against Iran, and the Democratic Union Party (PYD), which holds the reins of power in Kurdish areas of Syria. Both have many fighters from Turkey’s Kurdish areas.

“Iran’s main concern is whether the PKK fighters will be joining forces with PJAK or not,” says Mehdi Talati, a Swiss-based Iranian security analyst.

“PJAK, with its current strength, does not represent a strong challenge to the Iranian army, but it could pose a significant threat with reinforcements from the PKK.”

Surprise

Only two years ago, Iran and Turkey were conducting joint military operations against the PKK’s main bases in the Qandil Mountains.

Prof Nader Entessar of the University of South Alabama in the US argues Iran was taken by surprise by the peace process in Turkey: “The Iranian government doesn’t appear to have foreseen this and developed a plan B for this situation yet; we may say that they were caught off-guard.”

A ceasefire has been in place between the PKK’s Iranian offshoot and Tehran since the autumn of 2011.

Although the PKK has shown its resilience in the face of joint military operations from Turkey and Iran, the group has sought to avoid fighting on two fronts whenever it can.

PKK executive leader Murat Karayilan has tried hard to establish a ceasefire between PJAK and Iran in order to focus on the fight against Turkey.

He recently reiterated that he would like to see the truce between PJAK and Iran continue.

However, Abdullah Ocalan has talked about the possibility of PKK militants joining forces with the PYD and PJAK.

“I don’t believe that our guerrilla force will [cease being active] when we withdraw – there are Syria and Iran,” he was quoted as saying in leaked meeting notes with three MPs of the pro-Kurdish BDP, who went to meet him at Imrali Prison where he is being held.

Backfiring

Another potential loser in a peace deal between the PKK and Turkey could be Syria.
The PKK
- The PKK took up arms against the Turkish state in 1984, demanding greater autonomy for Turkey’s Kurds, who are thought to comprise up to 20% of the population
- Since then, some 40,000 people have died in the conflict
- It is regarded by Turkey, the US and European Union as a terrorist organisation because of its attacks on Turkish security forces and civilians
Syria’s policy towards the PKK has fluctuated over the last decades.

Seeing the PKK as a counterbalance against Turkey, the late President Hafez al-Assad harboured the group up until 1998, when his government forced the PKK leader out of the country under pressure from Turkey and the US.

Relations between Turkey and Syria became friendlier in the following years, and Assad’s son and incumbent president, Bashar, reiterated Syria’s full support for Turkey’s war with the PKK.

In a bid to retaliate against the shifting position of the Syrian government, Abdullah Ocalan decided, in the last few days of his stay in Syria, to establish a separate Kurdish group to fight against the Syrian government.

This move now gives Mr Ocalan one of his strongest cards in Imrali prison as he negotiates a peace deal with Turkey.

The PYD, re-established in 2003 after the failure of the first attempt, now holds the reins of power in most of the Kurdish areas of Syria.

Turkey is keen to see the PYD step up the fight against Syria, and some think they can count on Mr Ocalan to influence the Syrian Kurd position towards Turkey and the Syrian government.

The co-chair of the PYD, Saleh Muslim Muhammed, told BBC Turkish in London: “Ocalan is not only the leader of the PKK. He is a leader of the Kurdish people as well. We cannot overlook his opinions.”

“Start Quote

Iran may be the only country left with a Kurdish problem”

Mehdi TalatiIranian security analyst

The Syrian government’s hitherto friendly relations with Turkey came to an end in 2011, when the Turkish government declared its open support for the Syrian rebels.

In the face of the rebel uprising, Syrian government forces pulled out of Kurdish areas in the north to concentrate on the fighting elsewhere.

This move was based on the premise that de facto Kurdish autonomy on the Turkish border would pose a challenge to the Turkish government.

But that premise could turn out to be false if a Turkish peace deal with the PKK holds.

Boost for Turkey

Saleh Muslim Muhammed confirms that the Kurds in Syria have been watching the peace negotiations between the PKK and Turkey with high hopes.

“We are ready to talk to Turkey without any conditions and we begin to see indications of a change in the Turkish policy towards us,” he said.

The conflict with the PKK has effectively challenged Turkey’s regional ambitions, especially last year when the militants held ground in Turkey’s south-eastern corner for a couple of weeks.

Now a halt in the conflict could mean Turkey would be able to free up its military and economic resources and this would result in an increase in Turkey’s regional profile, says Mr Talati.

On the economic front, the conflict has cost Turkey more than $300bn (£194bn), according to official figures.

Mr Talati adds: “It is too early to decide whether the Turkish government is honest about a political solution to the Kurdish question. But if it reaches its intended conclusion, then Iran may be the only country left with a Kurdish problem.”
May 11, 2013
With its Syria plan in tatters, Turkey needs a strategy reboot

For much of the late 2000s, Turkey hoped that a booming economy, the prestige of combative Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and a burst of regional admiration for its successful mix of Muslim governance and democracy would reap it a harvest of Middle Eastern influence and profit.

At the heart of this strategy was an intimate relationship with the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad, the model for Turkey’s “zero problems” policy. The two countries signed model deals for visa-less travel, free trade and infrastructure integration. The leaders brought half their Cabinets to summit meetings. The Assads even lunched with the Erdogans on the eve of their 2008 holiday on the Turkish riviera.

Now the Syrian catastrophe has landed squarely on Turkey’s doorstep: 450,000 refugees, with the UN predicting double that by year’s end; costs of $1-billion and rising to look after the influx, only a tenth of which is covered by outside donors; and increasing tensions on the border. A recent Syrian air force raid close to one Turkish border crossing killed five Syrians, wounded 50 people, hit an aid warehouse and an opposition base. Just days later at another border crossing, Syrians wanting to cross rioted, fired weapons and killed a Turkish policeman, wounded 11 other people and burned buildings and cars.

As regional instability has spread since 2010, Turkey’s Middle Eastern position has suffered too. The Libya war badly disrupted Turkey’s big contracting interests there. The loss of Syrian trucking routes to regional markets has joined the previous loss of Iraqi ones. Ankara’s backing of armed Syrian opposition groups has encouraged negative perceptions of Turkey acting not just as a would-be Sunni Muslim hegemon, but also as taking sides within the Sunni Arab world. Arab and Iranian commentators are critical of what they see as Ankara’s hubristic tendency to seek what they see as Ottoman-style regional dominance.

These Middle Eastern entanglements are clearly not principally Turkey’s fault, but some of Ankara’s policies have made things worse. At the height of its Middle East hopes – which were indeed accompanied by a substantial rise in trade with a region that takes a quarter of Turkey’s exports – Turkey repeatedly snubbed its much bigger investor and principal trading partner, the EU. Mr. Erdogan made emotional attacks on Israel, seeking domestic and regional popularity but losing a valuable image of regional neutrality. And the intensity which Mr. Erdogan switched policy to calling for Mr. Assad’s ouster in August, 2011, painted Turkish policy into a corner.

Ankara is now adjusting course in some areas. When the Syrian war got under way, Turkey quickly sought to calm popular alarm by bringing in Patriot missiles from its North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies. After years of stalling Turkey’s EU relationship, Mr. Erdogan is now visiting more EU states and nudging membership negotiations forward. Under intense U.S. pressure ahead of a May 16 trip to Washington, Mr. Erdogan also partly patched up his row with Israel by accepting an Israeli apology for Israel’s killing of eight Turkish citizens and Turkish-Americans trying to bring aid to the Palestinians in Gaza in 2010.

In fixing the overspill from the Syria crisis, however, much remains to be done. Certainly, the principal Western donors should be much more generous to Turkey, and engage effective Turkish humanitarian organizations, but Turkey also has to streamline its procedures to allow reputable, international NGOs to work. Turkey can hardly complain about a lack of Western aid when it has only registered three aid groups – thus allowing them bank accounts, to hire personnel, to get residence permits – since the crisis began two years ago.

Turkey is indeed a leading Sunni Muslim state, and a progressive one, but making Sunnism a key element of policy has become an element of polarizing tension both in the region and also for the 10 per cent of Turkey’s population who are heterodox Alevis. Turkey has long experience in its regional rivalry with Iran, but should work hard to avoid any gratuitous deepening of what could become proxy conflicts over Syria or Iraq. It should set up any new refugee camps well away from the border to avoid the impression that they are being used as rear bases.

Syria has already become a failed state, the Syrian conflict may still escalate further, and the crisis so far has shown that Turkey alone does not have the power to impose any solution, diplomatically or militarily. Even if the world does more to arm the Syrian opposition, this looks unlikely to topple the Assad regime. Ankara would therefore do well to abandon its wishful thinking about a quick resolution of the Syrian catastrophe, defend its vital interests with quieter rhetoric, continue rebuilding its frayed relations with traditional Western allies and adopt a realistic, medium-term strategy that balances its natural position between west and east.

Hugh Pope is director of International Crisis Group’s Turkey/Cyprus Project, and author of Turkey Unveiled: A History of Modern Turkey, Sons of the Conquerors: the Rise of the Turkic World, and Dining with al-Qaeda: Three Decades Exploring the Many Worlds of the Middle East.

via With its Syria plan in tatters, Turkey needs a strategy reboot – The Globe and Mail.

May 10, 2013
M of A – Syria: Al-Nusra With “Chemical Weapons” Sourced From Turkey

Syria: Al-Nusra With “Chemical Weapons” Sourced From Turkey

One of the three alleged “chemical weapon” attacks in Syria was done by chlorine on a checkpoint of the Syrian army. Fifteen soldiers died.

Two other attacks which Israel Britain and France alleged were done by the Syrian army and were somewhat mysterious. With collaboration of two bloggers and a photographer the incidents are now likely to be interpreted very different than Israel, Britain and France alleged.

Eliot Higgins, who blogs as Brown Moses, analyzed pictures of ammunition debris found at the two alleged attack sides.

The photographer Jeffry Ruigendijk photographed a salafist Al-Nusra fighter carrying a riot control gas canister that looks very similar to the ammunition debris found at the attacked places.

Small arms expert N.R. Jenzen-Jones identified the producer of these canisters and the likely way they found their way into Al-Nusra hands:

[T]he munitions do appear quite similar to those produced by the Indian Border Security Force’s Tear Smoke Unit (TSU), at their plant in Tekanpur, Madhya Pradesh. Several of their production items appear to share physical similarities with the unidentified grenade, but the closest visual match is their ‘Tear Smoke Chilli Grenade’, seen below. This grenade contains a combination of CS gas ( 2-chlorobenzalmalononitrile) and ‘synthetic chilli’ (likely a synthetic capsaicin, such as nonivamide) – both common riot control agents.

Riot control agents like tear gas or pepper spray can be deadly when, for example, used in closed rooms. They symptoms vary (pdf) but there are usually respiratory problems just as those described by those people who were under the alleged “chemical weapons attack.

So how did the Al-Nusra fighters get their hands on a Indian Border Security Force’s Tear Smoke Unit grenade?

This Indian news article notes that Turkey purchased 10,025 munitions from TSU in 2007, which may indicate a possible avenue of supply, particularly if the grenades were in the hands of rebel forces, as the image at top appears to indicate.

The “chemical weapon” attacks were not done by the Syrian army. They were done by so called “rebels” with chlorine and with riot control agents by jihadist insurgencies who sourced the gas by stealing it from a Syrian factory and somehow obtained riot control agents from official Turkish state stocks.

The Israeli, the British and the French government tried to instigate a wider war on Syria by making false allegations about “chemical weapon” attacks by the Syrian army. The U.S. nearly joined them in their allegations. Will all those op-ed writers and tried to use the “fact” of chemical weapon usage now call for all out war on Al-Nusra?

Don’t bet on it.

via M of A – Syria: Al-Nusra With “Chemical Weapons” Sourced From Turkey.

May 9, 2013