Category: Syria

Turkish doctors say no nerve gas in Syrian victims’ blood

REYHANLI, Turkey — Doctors in Turkey say initial tests of blood samples from victims of a suspected chemical weapons attack in Syria last month are negative for sarin gas.

A Syrian boy holds an AK-47 assault rifle in the majority-Kurdish Sheikh Maqsud district of the northern Syrian city of Aleppo. US intelligence agencies determined with “some degree of varying confidence” that chemical weapons have been used in Syria as of April 25, 2013. (DIMITAR DILKOFF/AFP/Getty Images)

Medics tested the blood samples — which were taken from some 13 victims of an attack that included white powder in the northern village of Saraqeb on April 29 — at the Reyhanli hospital on the same day, but did not find anything unusual, they said.

They tested the blood specifically for sarin gas — a nerve agent — and also ran regular bloodwork.

The samples from the victims, who suffered from dizziness, vomiting and respiratory difficulties, have since been sent to the Turkish capital, Ankara, for further testing.

The development comes as Israeli fighter jets are reported to have carried out at least several airstrikes on weapons convoys near Damascus over the weekend.

Employees at the Istanbul headquarters of the Council of Forensic Medicine, the institute testing the blood in Ankara, were unable to answer GlobalPost inquiries on the status of the additional tests.

Doctors in Reyhanli, in Turkey’s Hatay province, say they believe the Turkish government will keep the final results a secret due to the potential global political consequences of either negative or positive results.

US President Barack Obama had previously said chemical weapons use in the now two-year-long civil war would be a “red line”, and potentially provoke a US-led intervention against the government forces of Syrian president Bashar al Assad.

Both Israeli and US officials have in recent weeks said they believe that chemical weapons, including sarin gas, have been used in the fighting in Syria but it is unclear in what capacity and from where the chemicals originated.

More from GlobalPost: Syria: The horrific chemical weapons attack that probably wasn’t a chemical weapons attack (Graphic video)

But while some Syrians say chemical weapons have been used on civilian neighborhoods in several locations throughout the country, they remain difficult to identify.

“The symptoms were consistent with those caused by a chemical, and the effects of this chemical were very serious and potentially fatal,” said Dr. Ubada Alabrash, who treated the victims at Reyhanli hospital. “But we couldn’t identify what the chemical was.”

In Saraqeb and in an earlier attack on April 13 where white powder was dispersed in a Kurdish suburb of Aleppo, the civilian victims were displaying similar symptoms: dizziness, vomiting, headaches and breathing problems.

Also, based on photos and videos uploaded to YouTube — and catalogued by independent blogger and weapons monitor, Eliot Higgins — the spent munitions or canisters witnesses said disseminated the chemicals appeared to be virtually identical.

More from GlobalPost: Complete Coverage from Inside Syria

“It appears to be a very strong match to the remnants of devices that were supposedly used in an earlier attack in Sheikh Maghsoud, Aleppo,” Higgins writes of the canisters left behind in Saraqeb on his blog, “Brown Moses.” His work tracking and identifying weapons used in the Syrian conflict is cited widely by both rights groups and international media.

“This leads me to believe the same devices and chemical were used in both attacks,” he writes.

However, both weapons and medical experts are urging caution.

While the same agent could have been used in both attacks, it could have been tear gas or some other kind of generated smoke, normally used for riot control, some weapons experts said.

The telltale sign of a sarin gas attack is myosis, or constricting of the pupils, and fasciculations, the medical term for tremors. While GlobalPost confirmed that some of the victims in the April 13 attack suffered from tremors, it was unable to confirm any of them had myosis.

More from GlobalPost: UN clarifies statement, says ‘no conclusive findings’ on chemical weapons in Syria

While three people were killed in the attack in Aleppo and another person died from the attack on Saraqeb, the majority of victims recovered after just several days.

In Aleppo, the doctors who treated the patients also later suffered similar symptoms to the victims. In Reyahanli, the medics reportedly wore protective suits.

“My effects were mild, but one doctor had to be admitted to the ICU,” said Dr. Kawa Hassan of the Avreen Hospital that admitted the 22 victims of the attack in Aleppo.

When the patients began to arrive on April 13, Dr. Hassan said he was scared not only for himself but for the entire country.

“If he begins a chemical war, he will kill us all,” he said.

Tracey Shelton reported from Aleppo and Afrin, Syria and Reyhanli, Turkey.

May 6, 2013
Turkey may offer citizenship to Syriacs fleeing war in Syria

“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has been working to provide Syriacs with Turkish citizenship,” Evgil Türker, head of theFederation of Syriac Associations in Turkey said at a conference in Ankara on Syriacs in Syria at the beginning of the week.

Turkey is seemingly preparing, with Turkey’s top government officials having in recent months called on Syriacs to return to Turkey, to offer Turkish citizenship to Syriacs who were or are related to former citizens of Turkey and who are now in a difficult situation in war-torn Syria.

“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has been working to provide Syriacs with Turkish citizenship,” Evgil Türker, head of the Federation of Syriac Associations in Turkey said at a conference in Ankara on Syriacs in Syria at the beginning of the week. Turkey is actually the former homeland of many Syriacs who presently live in Syria and Europe, since, in the past, a large number of Syriacs left the country because they were ostracized by Muslim society due to their religion and were not allowed by the state to enjoy their rights.

According to estimates, out of a total of 2.5-3 million Syriacs living in Syria — Syriacs believe all Christians, apart from Armenians, in Syria to be of Syriac origin based on historical grounds –180,000 live in Syria’s Haseki province, which sits on the Turkish-Syrian border. “Maybe more than 90 percent of them are people whose elders emigrated from Turkey,” Türker told Sunday’s Zaman on the sidelines of the conference “Syrian Syriacs and Turkey: Building Peace Together.” Granting Syriacs Turkish citizenship would not be something unimaginable because Türker’s fathers and grandfathers were formerly registered in Midyat, Mardin province, in the birth registry anyway.

Calls made in previous months to Syriacs living abroad to convince them to return to Turkey, by several leading figures of the government such as Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdo?an and Foreign Minister Ahmet Davuto?lu, may be taken as a strong indication of Turkey’s intention of offering citizenship to those Syriacs in Syria who were, or at least whose parents or grandparents were formerly Turkish citizens. A Foreign Ministry official who spoke on condition of anonymity also believes that recent statements made by top government officials may be taken as a sign that Turkey is preparing to take such a step.

As part of efforts to mend fences with the Syriacs of Turkey, Turkish President Abdullah Gül met with leaders of Turkey’s Syriac community at the Çankaya presidential palace in February. For the first time in history, a member of Turkey’s Christian minority, Syriac Orthodox Archbishop Yusuf Çetin, accompanied a Turkish president on a trip abroad, in particular to Sweden, where a large number of Syriacs live. Davuto?lu, for his part, met with representatives of the Syriac community in Turkey in March and reaffirmed that Turkey was ready to extend help in every way possible to its Syriac brothers in Syria.

Syriacs urge Turkey to adopt a more encompassing discourse, a discourse not solely based on Sunnis, but towards opposition groups in Syria. Tuma Çelik, Turkey representative of the European Syriac Union (ESU), maintained that Turkey has ignored, up until recently, Syriacs in its Syria policy, but he also admitted that there have recently been some positive developments in that regard. Türker is hopeful. “There are indications that Turkey will develop a different attitude [from the one in the past],” he said, adding, “It should also take Christians [in Syria] into account.” Issou Gouriye, leader of the Syriac Union Party, is more cautious in his optimism. “We hear that Turkey has taken some positive steps, but the effects haven’t, as of yet, been felt by us in Syria,” he said at the meeting organized in Ankara.

Although they had, in the past, troubles in living comfortably in Turkey, Syriacs see Turkey as the main actor they could possibly turn to when in trouble and expect to receive greater help from Turkey. “We have lived together for a thousand years. Who else can we lay our expectations on, if not Turkey?” Gouriye, who, having studied at a Turkish university, can speak Turkish fluently, told Sunday’s Zaman. “If Turkey is willing to do its part, there is a lot that can be done together,” he added.

Syriacs, who historically see Syria as their homeland, are probably one of the most adversely affected ethnic and religious groups in the civil war in Syria. Only recently two archbishops from the Syriac Orthodox and Melkite (mostly Greek Orthodox) churches were abducted by gunmen in Aleppo. Syriacs are worried that attacks against Christians aim not only to drive Syriacs out of Syria, land on which they have been living for thousands of years, but also to cause division and conflict among opposition groups fighting the Bashar al-Assad regime.

Syriacs’ fears are not baseless, considering what happened in Iraq. According to Çelik, two-thirds of out of more than 1 million Syriacs in Iraq migrated following the American occupation. For the moment, the total number of Syriacs who fled the civil war in Syria by seeking shelter in a foreign country makes up no more than 1 percent of all Syriacs in Syria. But should the civil war reach the province of Haseki, where a large number of Syriacs live and where there are no major clashes at the moment, the number of Syriacs who may choose to flee the country could significantly increase.

By some estimates, there are presently around 500 Syriacs who have come to Turkey from Syria. But Turkey has been building, in the town of Midyat in Mardin province, a refugee camp for Syriacs with a capacity to accommodate 4,000 people, and another with a capacity of 6,000 people for Kurds and Arabs who might flee to Turkey. It may be out of an expectation that clashes could in the near future reach the Haseki region, which lies along some of Turkey’s border with Syria and which is also densely populated by Kurds, that Turkey is busy with camp building.

As Syria is the only country where Syriacs have a relatively dense population, should Syriacs in Syria, as the ones in Iraq have done in the past, flee the country because of the civil war, the ethnic group will be scattered around the world. That’s why the Federation of Syriac Associations is not willing to give a helping hand to Syriacs of Syria who are trying to emigrate abroad. “The only country where we have now a mass population is Syria,” Türker said, defending the federation’s stance.

May 6, 2013
Turkey choosing between ‘bad and worse’ in Syria crisis

Jordanian activists from the Al-Tahrir party hold a sign that reads in Arabic “Your silence is shameful” during a demonstration to demand Turkish military intervention in support of Syrian rebels fighting the forces of Syria’s President Bashar Al-Assad, in front of the Turkish embassy in Amman in February.

By Fulya Ozerkan

AFP

Monday, May 06, 2013

ANKARA – Turkey’s support for the Syrian rebels in the neighbouring country’s civil war has led to a policy of choosing between “bad and worse”, say analysts urging Ankara to come up with an impartial approach to the crisis.

The Islamist-rooted government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has shunned dialogue with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and explicitly called for his ouster after diplomacy failed to convince him to adopt democratic reforms.

And Turkey, already home to thousands of Syrian refugees, has also become a base for Syrian rebels and army defectors who form the very core of the opposition Free Syrian Army.

A recent article in the New York Times was among many to claim that Ankara’s Esenboga Airport was now a major hub for arms supply to rebel factions – though Turkey denies arming the rebels.

“Turkey’s Syria policy has been full of mistakes since the very beginning,” Professor Huseyin Bagci of the Middle East Technical University told AFP.

“Turkey is perceived to be a contract killer in Syria backing the radicals,” he said.

Witnesses have said they’ve seen a group of jihadist fighters staying in hotels in Turkish border towns, shuttling back and forth from Syria.

The merger of Al-Nusra and Al-Qaeda, considered terrorist groups by Washington, has bolstered the Damascus claim that the rebels are extremists and raised fears in the West. Al-Nusra has been playing an effective role in the fight against Assad’s forces.

A cautious Washington is opposed to arming the rebels out of fear the weapons may turn up in the hands of extremists, though the European Union’s two heavyweights France and Britain are pushing for the lifting of an arms embargo.

Ankara is betting on the likelihood that the radical elements on the rebel side will not fit into Syrian society, and when the conflict is over, they will be “weeded out” naturally.

But meanwhile Turkey’s leaders who initially claimed that Assad’s days were numbered now avoid setting a deadline.

Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has admitted Turkey would face “extraordinary security risks” whether or not Assad remains in power in Syria as the two countries share a 910-kilometre (560 mile) frontier.

“Turkey is a frontline state in the Syrian crisis. Whatever happens has a direct effect on Turkey,” Professor Carlo Masala of the University of the German Armed Forces, told AFP.

Turkey makes its decisions based on its own perception of the Syrian situation, and its policy on Syria is the “result of a hard choice between bad and worse,” said Masala.

“We choose the less bad side and support them fully knowing that they might create a situation more demanding afterwards, like we see in Iraq or Libya.”

via Turkey choosing between ‘bad and worse’ in Syria crisis.

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May 6, 2013
Turkey decontaminates wounded Syrians over chemical attack claims; alert soon called off

By Associated Press, Published: April 30

ANKARA, Turkey — Turkish border authorities decontaminated a group of wounded Syrians as they entered Turkey and hospital staff wore protective equipment to treat them because some claimed they may have come under a chemical attack in Syria, an official said Tuesday.

However, there was no indication that chemical weapons were used against them and the hospital near the border with Syria soon returned to normal operations, an aide to the governor of Hatay province told The Associated Press. He spoke on condition of anonymity citing government rules that bar civil servants from speaking to journalists without authorization.

via Turkey decontaminates wounded Syrians over chemical attack claims; alert soon called off – The Washington Post.

May 1, 2013
NATO missiles defend Turkey as debate rages over whether the West should intervene in Syria’s civil war

First Lieutenant Arnd de Ruiter commands a Dutch Patriot missile battery which defends southern Turkey from Scud missile attacks from Syria, where Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime is becoming more unpredictable and may have used chemical weapons against his own people.

Photograph by: Matthew Fisher/Postmedia News , Postmedia News

ADANA, Turkey — As bloody as the war inside Syria is, it would suddenly get much bigger and much more complicated politically if a Syrian tactical ballistic missile was to hit Adana, a city of more than two million Turks. Such an attack would immediately draw in the Turks and oblige every NATO country to contribute to Turkey’s defence.

Adana is 140 kilometres away from the Syrian border, as the Scud missile flies. Such rockets can carry chemical weapons which the United States and others suspect have recently been used against Syrians.

via NATO missiles defend Turkey as debate rages over whether the West should intervene in Syria’s civil war.

April 30, 2013
Syria accuses Turkey of supplying rebels with chemical weapons

Syrian minister lashes out at West for supporting rebels; denies claims of chemical weapons use by government; ‘US manipulative, trying to repeat Iraq,’ he blames

Ynet

Published: 04.27.13, 09:58 / Israel News

Syrian Information Minister Omran Al-Zoubi rejected US andBritish allegations Damascus had used chemical weapons against opposition fighters, and instead accused Turkey of allowing rebels to transfer chemical weapons across the border into Syria, the Syrian SANA new agency reported.

The minister talked to Russia TV on Friday, dismissing a claim by US officials a day earlier that they had evidence the chemical weapon sarin had been used in Syria on a small scale, CNN reported.

“Everything that the American minister and British government have said lack credibility,” Al-Zoubi said. “It’s baseless, and it’s a new tactic to put political and economic pressure on Syria.”

Dead animals in Syrian village, allegedly killed by chemical weapons (Photo: Reuters)

Al-Zoubi said the Syrian government is the one that called for an investigation of an incident in which it claimed chemical weapons were used by “terrorist groups.” The government routinely labels rebel fighters as terrorists.

Syria does not have chemical weapons and would not use them if it did, he said.

The Americans “want to manipulate the issue, to let whoever used the chemical weapons … get away (with it), and to repeat the Iraq example,” Al-Zoubi said.

United States President Barack Obama said on Friday that the deployment of chemical weapons by the Syrian government was a “game changer” while noting that intelligence assessments proving that such weapons had been used were still preliminary.

“Horrific as it is when mortars are being fired on civilians and people are being indiscriminately killed, to use potential weapons of mass destruction on civilian populations crosses another line with respect to international norms and international law,” Obama told reporters at the White House.

Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron agreed with US President Barack Obama that such use would represent a “red line” for the international community, but said the response would likely be political rather than military.

“This is extremely serious. And I think what President Obama said was absolutely right, that this should form for the international community a red line for us to do more,” Cameron told the BBC.

But he objected to British military involvement in Syria. “I don’t want to see that and I don’t think that is likely to happen.

“But I think we can step up the pressure on the regime, work with our partners, work with the opposition in order to bring about the right outcome.”

Also Friday, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon asked the man heading the world body’s investigation into chemical weapons use in Syria to report to UN headquarters on Monday for “consultations,” a UN spokesman said.

The UN leader has repeatedly asked the Syrian government to give UN inspectors unrestricted access to the country as it looked into chemical weapons use allegations. The team, led by Swedish scientist Ake Sellstrom, is ready to head to Syria within 48 hours if an agreement is reached.

April 28, 2013