Category: Regions

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
Israel to join Turkey, Arab states to stop Iran

British newspaper reports Israel will agree to joint effort with regional powers to counter Iran, “fundamentalist crescent”.

Iranian ballisitic missile launched at war game. Photo: Ho New / Reuters

Israel has been working toward a cooperative agreement in compliance with Turkey and three Arab states to implement an allied system of detection technologies to defend against Iranian ballistic projectiles, British newspaper The Sunday Times reported.

The initiative, termed “4+1”, reportedly proposes joint efforts to be taken by Israel along with Turkey, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan to share access to radar and anti-missile technologies, according to the Times.

Under the initiative, Israeli technicians would gain access to data from radar technologies in Saudi Arabia and the Emirates in return for allowing experts from its partners to tap into Jerusalem’s anti-missile and advanced radar defense systems, the report said.

The plan, brokered by the United States, aims to create a “moderate crescent” in the region in contrast to the “fundamentalist crescent” consisting of Iran, Iraq, Syria and Hezbollah, the report said.

Related:

Report: Israel, UAE, Saudis in huge US arms deal

Israel views “4+1” as an ambitious plan presented by Washington as “the Americans are working on a regional alliance to deter and contain Tehran,” the Times reported an Israeli official as saying.

via ‘Israel to join Turkey, Arab states to stop Iran’ | JPost | Israel News.

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’s ‘Hidden’ Armenians keen to regain lost identity

Posted on 1 week ago

TUNCELI Turkey (AFP) – They dropped their language and religion to survive after the 1915 genocide, but close to 100 years on Turkey s “hidden Armenians” want to take pride in their identity.

Some genocide survivors adopted Islam and blended in with the Kurds in eastern Turkey s Dersim mountains to avoid further persecution.

Several generations down the road, the town of Tunceli hosted a landmark ceremony Wednesday for Genocide Remembrance Day, something which has only ever happened in Istanbul and the large city of Diyarbakir.

The massacre and deportation of Ottoman Armenians during World War I, which Armenians claim left around 1.5 million dead, is described by many countries as genocide although Ankara continues to reject the term.

Speaking in front of the ruins of the Ergen church — one of the few remnants of Christian Armenian heritage in the region — Miran Pirginc Gultekin, president of the Dersim Armenian Association, explained it was still rare to declare oneself openly as Armenian in Turkey.

“We decided that we had to get back to our true nature, that this way of living was not satisfactory, that it was not fair to live with another s identity and another s faith,” he said.

Despite converting to Alevism, a heterodox sect of Islam, and taking Turkish names, the ethnic Armenians who stayed on their ancestral land suffered from continued discrimination and the elders often struggle to summon their memories.

“My mother told me how her family was deported. She was a baby at the time and her mother considered drowning her in despair,” said Tahire Aslanpencesi, a sprightly octogenarian from the village Danaburan.

“My mother used to say all the misery that came after would have been avoided had her mother drowned her,” she recalled.

After converting to Islam, many of the so-called “crypto-Armenians” said they still faced unfair treatment: their land was often confiscated, the men were humiliated with “circumcision checks” in the army and some were tortured.

Hidir Boztas grandfather converted to Islam, gave his son a Turkish name and the clan intermarried with a Kurdish community in the village of Alanyazi.

“We feel Armenian nonetheless and in any case the others always remind us of where we come from. No matter how many of their daughters we marry, and how many of ours we give them, they will continue to call us Armenians,” he said.

The Armenian community shared the Kurds suffering when the regime cracked down on Kurdish rebellions, from the 1938 revolt to the insurrection started by the PKK group in 1984.

For a long time, only those who had left the ancestral homestead dared to make their Armenian roots known.

“Armenians in Istanbul are in a big city, they have their neighbourhoods, their churches, nobody can do anything to them. But in these villages, there s rejection and insults,” said Hidir Boztas, 86.

Human rights campaigners gathered Wednesday in downtown Istanbul carrying portraits of genocide victims.

They were only a handful but they argued that the simple fact that such an event was authorised and groups such as theirs invited proved that attitudes were changing.

“Ten years ago, such an event was impossible in Turkey,” said Benjamin Abtan,” a European activist.

One of Hidir s nephews, 42-year-old Mustafa, a businessman, is one of a growing number of Muslim Armenians who want to be proud of their identity.

Mustafa has decided to name his construction firm Bedros after Hidir s grandfather, who was deported during the genocide.

“It symbolised my past. My great-grandfather was called Bedros, and I wanted his name to live on. I am against radicalism, and I don t do this through racism or religious extremism, but I don t deny my origins — everyone knows them.”

He said he hoped the unprecedented ceremony in Tunceli Wednesday would encourage more members of the community to come out in the open.

“The aim is to allow people to assert their identity more freely and also to generate more interest for the little Christian heritage left in the region,” said Miran Pirginc Gultekin.

His society was created three years ago and has around 80 members.

May 4, 2013
Turkey selects Japan to build nuclear plant

Japan has learned from the Fukushima disaster and will offer technology with the highest safety standards while building Turkey’s second nuclear plant, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said today.

Turkey chose a Japanese-French partnership for the construction of a nuclear reactor on its Black Sea coast and a nuclear cooperation agreement was signed during Abe’s visit to Ankara.

Despite being prone to earthquakes, energy-dependent Turkey declared in the wake of the Fukushima incident that it would stand firmly by plans to build three nuclear power plants.

A powerful earthquake and tsunami off Japan’s northeastern coast knocked out vital cooling systems at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant in 2011, causing multiple meltdowns and setting off the worst nuclear catastrophe since the Chernobyl disaster in 1986.

Turkey’s Energy Ministry said the country decided to begin technical negotiations with Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and France’s Areva, after companies from South Korea, China and Canada withdrew or were eliminated from the bid.

The 5000-megawatt capacity plant is expected to cost US$22 billion and be operational in 2023.

Russia will construct Turkey’s first plant in Akkuyu, on the Mediterranean coast. It is scheduled to begin test production in 2019.

In constructing the second plant, “we are going to use first-class technology,” Abe said. “We have carried our experience in nuclear safety to the highest level through lessons learned from past accidents and risks.”

“We will share our experience with Turkey,” he added. “We have raised standards, lifting us to the highest ranks in terms of nuclear safety.”

Turkish Energy Minister Taner Yildiz said under the cooperation deal with Japan, Japanese experts also would work with Turkish engineers in selecting the site of a third nuclear plant.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his country was a rapidly developing nation that was forced to diversify energy resources. He has repeatedly downplayed nuclear risks.

“There may be a one in a million risk but that does not mean we can’t take a step,” Erdogan said. “We still take planes even if they crash, we still ride cars even if there are road accidents.”

– AP

via Turkey Nuclear Plant | Turkey tab Japan to build… | Stuff.co.nz.

May 4, 2013