ANKARA, Turkey — The Obama administration on Monday began the work of trying to determine exactly what roles the members of its fledgling coalition of countries to fight the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria will play, with Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel huddled with the leaders of the one country the administration has called “absolutely indispensable” to the fight: Turkey.
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, left, met Monday with Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the president of Turkey, to gauge Turkey’s willingness to participate in an American-led coalition against the militant group ISIS, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Credit Reuters
But after hours of meetings here, there were no announcements of what the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan might do. In fact, Turkish officials meeting with Mr. Hagel eschewed the news conferences that usually accompany high-level visits from American officials.
Rather, Turkey’s foreign minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, warned on the state-run Anatolia news agency that weapons sent by Western countries to fight ISIS could end up in the hands of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or P.K.K., which Ankara considers a terrorist group.
“We have expressed our concerns,” Mr. Cavusoglu said. “It may not be possible to control where these weapons will go.”
Turkish officials raised concern about a host of issues surrounding the coalition, including the safety of 49 Turkish diplomats who have been taken hostage by ISIS, and whether the growing international effort to arm Kurdish fighters in Iraq against ISIS could embolden Kurdish militants in Turkey who have been seeking autonomy for the country’s largely Kurdish southeast. Turkish Kurds with the P.K.K. have fought with Kurdish pesh merga fighters in northern Iraq against ISIS. Turkey is also grappling with an influx of more than 800,000 Syrian refugees — the largest Syrian refugee population after Lebanon’s.
Speaking to reporters after meeting with Mr. Erdogan on Monday, Mr. Hagel said that Turkish officials had expressed to him their concern about the P.K.K. But, he added, “They didn’t indicate to me in any way that they saw the P.K.K. as a more significant threat than ISIL,” using an alternative acronym for ISIS.
The Obama administration wants Turkey to crack down on the flow of foreign fighters who have used the country as a transit point to Syria to join militant groups fighting there. The United States also wants to be able to use Turkish military bases to begin operations, including airstrikes, on ISIS targets in Iraq and Syria if President Obamadecides to attack inside Syria.
“By geography, Turkey is going to be absolutely indispensable to the ongoing fight against ISIS,” a senior defense official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “Because of just where they sit, the access we currently already have militarily and the cooperation we have militarily.”
Mr. Erdogan, at the NATO summit meeting in Wales last week, met with Mr. Obama and said Turkey would become the only majority Muslim country so far to join what Mr. Hagel termed a “core coalition” of 10 countries fighting ISIS. Mr. Obama said after the meeting that he would welcome Turkey’s participation in his coalition.
But Turkey has several times balked at allowing the American military to use its bases for operations in the region — most famously in Iraq in 2003. Mr. Erdogan himself has a complicated relationship with Mr. Obama. The two initially formed a close personal relationship during Mr. Obama’s first term, and Turkey was the first majority Muslim country that the American president visited after taking office.
But the relationship soured over differences on Egypt and Syria, and deteriorated even more when Mr. Erdogan suggested that a conspiracy involving the United States was behind a corruption investigation by Turkish prosecutors that targeted him and his inner circle.
Mr. Hagel said the tensions between the United States and Turkey should not get in the way of joining in the fight against ISIS. “Yes, we’ve had our ups and downs in the relationship, but what’s interesting is it has never broken,” Mr. Hagel said.
“Now,” he added, “we have a situation in the world today that presents a clear and new set of very real threats.” Mr. Hagel said the United States expected that Turkey “will be involved in all of our efforts, as articulated by the president, to build a coalition to deal with ISIL.”
U.S. to release information about Syria’s chemical weapons use
(CNN) — The Obama administration will release declassified intelligence Friday backing up a government assessment that the Syrian regime was responsible for a chemical weapons attack, a senior administration official said.
[U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel’s response to the vote was more diplomatic.
The United States respects the results, he told journalists in Manila, the Philippines. “Every nation has a responsibility to make their own decisions.”
The United States will continue to consult with the British government and still hope for “international collaboration.”
“Our approach is to continue to find an international coalition that will act together,” he said .]
This comes amid talk among major powers of a military response against the forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The administration has said that the information would be made public by the end of the week.
But diplomatic and political developments this week raised the chances of the United States going it alone in a military intervention.
A U.N. Security Council meeting on Syria ended in deadlock, and in the U.S. Congress, doubts about military intervention are making the rounds.
And the United States’ closest ally, Great Britain, backed out of a possible coalition when its lawmakers voted down a proposal on military intervention.
British Prime Minister David Cameron said it is important for the United Kingdom to have a “robust response to the use of chemical weapons, and there are a series of things that (Britain) will continue to do.”British involvement in a military action “won’t be happening,” he said.
But diplomacy is continuing. Speaking in televised comments aired Friday, Cameron said he expects to speak to President Obama over the “next day or so.”
On Friday afternoon, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon intends to consult with countries at the United Nations on developments in Syria and is scheduled to meet with permanent members of the U.N. Security Council at noon Friday.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is scheduled to speak about Syria at the State Department on Friday at 12:30 p.m. ET.
Iran: U.S. military action in Syria would spark ‘disaster’
Alone or together?
After the British vote, a senior U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told CNN that going it alone was a real prospect.
“We care what they think. We value the process. But we’re going to make the decision we need to make,” the official said.
Former President George W. Bush said Obama’s “got a tough choice to make.”
“I was not a fan of Mr. Assad. He’s an ally of Iran, he’s made mischief,” he told Fox News on Friday. “If he (Obama) decides to use the military, he’s got the greatest military in the world backing him up.”
In a statement released Friday, former President Jimmy Carter said “a punitive military response without a U.N. Security Council mandate or broad support from NATO and the Arab League would be illegal under international law and unlikely to alter the course of the war.”
A former director of the CIA says he believes Obama would face off with al-Assad alone.
“I can’t conceive he would back down from a very serious course of action,” retired Gen. Michael Hayden told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.
[…]
Chemical weapons in Syria: How did we get here?
The government of France supports military intervention, if evidence incriminates the government of using poison gas against civilians.
But on Friday, President Francois Hollande told French newspaper Le Monde that intervention should be limited and not include al-Assad’s overthrow.
Public opinion
Skeptics of military action have pointed at the decision to use force in Iraq, where the United States government under Bush marched to war based on a thin claim that former dictator Saddam Hussein was harboring weapons of mass destruction.
Opponents are conjuring up a possible repeat of that scenario in Syria, though the intelligence being gathered on the use of WMDs in Syria may be more sound.
Half of all Americans say they oppose possible U.S. military action against Syria, according to an NBC News survey released Friday.
Nearly eight in 10 of those questioned say Obama should be required to get congressional approval before launching any military attack against al-Assad’s forces
The poll, conducted Wednesday and Thursday, indicates that 50% of the public says the United States should not take military action against Damascus in response to the Syrian government’s alleged use of chemical weapons against its own citizens, with 42% saying military action is appropriate.
But the survey suggests that if any military action is confined to air strikes using cruise missiles, support rises. Fifty percent of a smaller sample asked that question say they support such an attack, with 44% opposing a cruise missile attack meant to destroy military units and infrastructure that have been used to carry out chemical attacks.
“Only 25% of the American people support military action in Syria,” former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Bill Richardson told CNN’s Piers Morgan on Thursday.
Convincing evidence
To shake off the specter of the Iraq war, the public needs convincing that chemical weapons were used and that al-Assad’s regime was behind it.
“You have to have almost incontrovertible proof,” Richardson told CNN’s Piers Morgan on Thursday.
It’s there, said Arizona Sen. John McCain, and will be visible soon. He thinks that comparisons to Iraq are overblown and that doubts are unfounded.
“Come on. Does anybody really believe that those aren’t chemical weapons — those bodies of those children stacked up?” the Republican senator asked Morgan.
Al-Assad’s government has claimed that jihadists fighting with the opposition carried out the chemical weapons attacks on August 21 to turn global sentiments against it.
Read UK intelligence on chemical weapons
McCain doesn’t buy it.
“The rebels don’t have those weapons,” he said.
The president also needs to assure Congress that a possible intervention would not get out of hand, said Democratic Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland.
“The action has to have a very limited purpose, and the purpose is to deter future use of chemical weapons,” he said.
Why Russia, Iran and China are standing by al-Assad
Haunted by Iraq
The parliamentarians in London shot down the proposal in spite of intelligence allegedly incriminating the Assad government.
Britain’s Joint Intelligence Committee has concluded it was “highly likely” that Syrian government forces used poison gas outside Damascus last week in an attack that killed at least 350 people, according to a summary of the committee’s findings released Thursday.
A yes vote would not have sent the UK straight into a deployment.
Cameron had said his government would not act without first hearing from the U.N. inspectors and giving Parliament another chance to vote on military action. But his opposition seemed to be reminded of the Iraq war.
Opinion: For the U.S., Syria is a problem from hell
“I think today the House of Commons spoke for the British people who said they didn’t want a rush to war, and I was determined we learned the lessons of Iraq, and I’m glad we’ve made the prime minister see sense this evening,” Labour Party leader Ed Miliband told the Press Association.
The no vote came after a long day of debate, and it appeared to catch Cameron and his supporters by surprise.
For days, the prime minister has been sounding a call for action, lending support to talk of a U.S.- or Western-led strike against Syria.
“I strongly believe in the need for a tough response to the use of chemical weapons, but I also believe in respecting the will of this House of Commons,” the prime minister said.
“We will not be taking part in military action,” Cameron said Friday. “The British Parliament has spoken very, very clearly,” he said.
Though Cameron did not need parliamentary approval to commit to an intervention, he felt it important “to act as a democrat, to act a different way to previous prime ministers and properly consult Parliament,” he said Friday.
He regrets not being able to build a consensus of lawmakers, he said.
Letter from al-Assad
Before the vote, Syria’s government offered its own arguments against such an intervention. In an open letter to British lawmakers, the speaker of Syria’s parliament riffed on British literary hero William Shakespeare, saying: “If you bomb us, shall we not bleed?”
But the letter also invoked Iraq, a conflict justified on the grounds that Iraq had amassed stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons and was working toward a nuclear bomb — claims that were discovered to have been false after the 2003 invasion.
“Those who want to send others to fight will talk in the Commons of the casualties in the Syrian conflict. But before you rush over the cliffs of war, would it not be wise to pause? Remember the thousands of British soldiers killed and maimed in Afghanistan and Iraq, not to mention the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi dead, both in the war and in the continuing chaos.”
British Commons Speaker John Bercow published the letter.
U.N. deadlock
Lack of support for military intervention at the United Nations on Thursday was less of a surprise.
Russia, which holds a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council, is one of Syria’s closest allies and is most certain to veto any resolution against al-Assad’s government that involves military action.
Moscow reiterated the stance Friday.
“Russia is against any resolution of the U.N. Security Council, which may contain an option for use of force,” Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov said Friday.
Map: U.S. and allied assets around Syria
A closed-door Security Council meeting called by Russia ended with no agreement on a resolution to address the growing crisis in Syria, a Western diplomat told CNN’s Nick Paton Walsh on condition of anonymity.
U.N. weapons inspectors are now in Syria trying to confirm the use of chemical weapons. The inspectors are expected to leave the country by Saturday morning.
They are to brief U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who, in turn, will swiftly brief the Security Council on the findings.
Congressional jitters
The president is facing doubts at home as well: More than 160 members of Congress, including 63 Democrats, have now signed letters calling for either a vote or at least a “full debate” before any U.S. action.
The author of one of those letters, Democratic Rep. Barbara Lee of California, said Obama should seek “an affirmative decision of Congress” before committing American forces.
More than 90 members of Congress, most of them Republican, signed another letter by GOP Rep. Scott Rigell of Virginia. That letter urged Obama “to consult and receive authorization” before authorizing any such military action.
Congress is in recess until September 9.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Obama was still weighing a potential response to the chemical weapons attacks.
The president has said that he is not considering a no-fly zone and has ruled out U.S. boots on the ground in Syria.
Al-Assad has vowed to defend his country against any outside attack.
UK Government’s legal position on Syrian regime’s chemical weapon use
U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel reiterated yesterday that he admires Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of the Republic of Turkey, and Turks in his first press conference in the Pentagon, daily Hürriyet has reported.
“Well, I’m glad to know my standing is significant in Turkey. But – and I admire the Turks and the government, and Atatürk and I have over the years noted Atatürk in different speeches I’ve given, not just in Turkey, but the United States. He did something that was very significant that has had a very important sustaining legacy in the world. And sometimes we — we in the West don’t fully appreciate what Atatürk did.” Hagel said in response to a question.
Turkish-Israeli rapprochement critically important to the region
“The recent rapprochement between NATO member Turkey and major non-NATO ally Israel was critically important to the region,” Hagel said.
“It does affect Syria,” he said. “It does affect the neighbors in developing more confidence, I would suspect, among the neighbors in that area that Turkey and Israel will once again begin working together on some of these common interests.”
Former Republican senator Chuck Hagel was sworn in on Feb. 27 as the new U.S. defense secretary.
