Tag: Syrian Opposition

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
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
Syrian Anti-Assad Rebel Groups Funded by Saudi Arabia, Qatar

Syrian rebels take position during clashes with regime forces in the northern city of Aleppo on Sept. 14, 2012

Vast swaths of northern Syria, especially in the province of Idlib, have slipped out of the hands of President Bashar Assad, if not quite out of his reach. The area is now a de facto liberated zone, though the daily attacks by Damascus’ air force and the shelling from the handful of checkpoints and bases regime forces have fallen back to are reminders that the rebel hold on the territory remains fluid and fragile.

What is remarkable is that this substantial strip of “free” Syria has been patched together in the past 18 months by military defectors, students, tradesmen, farmers and pharmacists who have not only withstood the Syrian army’s withering fire but in some instances repelled it using a hodgepodge of limited, light weaponry. The feat is even more amazing when one considers the disarray among the outside powers supplying arms to the loosely allied band of rebels.

(PHOTOS: Syria’s Year of Chaos and Photos of a Slow-Motion War)

As TIME reports here, disorder and distrust plague two of the rebels’ international patrons: Saudi Arabia and Qatar. The two Gulf powerhouses are no longer on the same page when it comes to determining who among the plethora of mushrooming Syrian rebel groups should be armed. The rift surfaced in August, with the alleged Saudi and Qatari representatives in charge of funneling free weaponry to the rebels clearly backing different factions among the groups — including various shades of secular and Islamist militias — under the broad umbrella that is the Free Syrian Army (FSA).

The middlemen of the two countries operate out of Turkey, the regional military power. Ankara has been quite public with its denunciation of Assad even as it denies any involvement in shuffling weapons across the border to Syrian rebels. It claims its territory is not being used to do so. And yet, as TIME reported in June, a secretive group operates something like a command center in Istanbul, directing the distribution of vital military supplies believed to be provided by Saudi Arabia and Qatar and transported with the help of Turkish intelligence to the Syrian border and then to the rebels. Further reporting has revealed more details of the operation, the politics and favoritism that undermine the task of creating a unified rebel force out of the wide array of groups trying to topple the Assad regime.

(The FSA is nominally headed by Riad al-As’aad, who is based in Turkey. Neither As’aad nor his chief FSA rival General Mustafa Sheikh are party to the Istanbul control room that supplies and arms rebels who operate under the FSA banner. The two men each have their own sources of funding and are independently distributing money and weapons to selected FSA units.)

via Syrian Anti-Assad Rebel Groups Funded by Saudi Arabia, Qatar | World | TIME.com.

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September 20, 2012
Turkey Supports Terrorism: Erdogan scores own-goal on Syria crisis

By Finian Cunningham

Global Research, September 07, 2012

Press TV September 18, 2012

Region: Middle East & North Africa

In-depth Report: SYRIA: NATO’S NEXT WAR?

Contrary to what the Western mainstream media portray, the armed militias in Syria are not fighting for democracy or freedom on behalf of the Syrian people. Indeed, credible sources report that the Syrian population is living under a reign of terror imposed by these militias, which have resorted to massacring villages, public beheadings, no-warning car bombs that even target funerals, kidnapping of families, attacking hospitals and news broadcasters, and turning mosques and churches into sniper posts.”

Before taking up a career in politics, Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was known in his younger days as a semi-professional soccer player. Now, it seems, his erstwhile footballing skills are letting him down badly as he scores one own-goal after another on the political field.

The 58-year-old Turkish leader this week denounced his former personal friend, Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad, as a “terrorist.”

Erdogan told a gathering of his ruling Justice and Development Party: “The regime in Syria has now become a terrorist state.” Recently, the Turkish premier also declared that President Assad had “lost all legitimacy” and therefore “must go.”

However, on every issue, Erdogan’s fiery words and actions have a knack of rebounding with self-inflicted damage to his own integrity and that of his government.

Ironically, at the same time that Erdogan was denouncing Syria as a “terrorist state,” some 400 members of the self-styled Free Syrian Army were gathering in Turkey’s Hatay Province for a three-day summit. The agenda? How to sharpen their campaign of terror on Syria to overthrow the government in Damascus.

For the past 17 months, the Turkish government and military have been brazenly assisting the armed militias waging a foreign-backed covert war of aggression against the neighboring Syrian state and people.

Turkey has provided the criminal war effort with land bases, logistics and surveillance, personnel training and weapons, including anti-aircraft missiles, according to recent reports.

Contrary to what the Western mainstream media portray, the armed militias in Syria are not fighting for democracy or freedom on behalf of the Syrian people. Indeed, credible sources report that the Syrian population is living under a reign of terror imposed by these militias, which have resorted to massacring villages, public beheadings, no-warning car bombs that even target funerals, kidnapping of families, attacking hospitals and news broadcasters, and turning mosques and churches into sniper posts.

The so-called Free Syrian Army, which is now reportedly re-branding itself as the Syrian National Army in part to distance itself from these atrocities, may include nationals and defectors, such as the former general Mohammed al-Haj Ali and colonel Riad al-Asaad, but the ranks are brimming with mercenaries from several countries affiliated with Western and Saudi-backed Sunni extremists, such as the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group and the mercurial al-Qaeda.

The Syrian government claims that the country is the victim of a foreign conspiracy of destabilization and regime change [which] are, as the evidence shows, factually correct.

This means that Turkey and its NATO allies, the US, Britain, France and Germany, along with the Saudi, Qatari and Israeli arms suppliers, are co-conspirators in an unprovoked, criminal war of aggression against a sovereign state. In short, state terrorism.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, for one, therefore stands accused of having very serious blood on his hands. He is liable to face charges of state terrorism and complicity in causing the deaths of thousands of civilians. In this light, his excoriation of Syria’s Assad sounds rather more like the words of a man who is talking into a mirror.

But Erdogan’s own-goals are rebounding in other ways too. His treacherous subversion against Syria is provoking a public backlash within Turkey against his ruling party. Polls and protests show that the Turkish people are deeply opposed to Erdogan’s neo-Ottomanism. His former popularity is melting rapidly like snow in spring as the Turkish Labor Party and other opposition parties condemn the Ankara government for “engaging in terrorism.”

The terrorism that Erdogan and his planners are unleashing in Syria is recoiling with a refugee crisis that is placing an acute strain on Turkish economic resources. The UN says that the numbers fleeing to Turkey may soon reach 200,000. These people are fleeing from violence that Erdogan is in part personally responsible for. The frustration voiced by the premier and his foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, over the lack of action from the US, France and Britain to back “safe havens” for refugees in Syria is a sign that Erdogan fears that his supposed Western allies are conniving to dump that humanitarian crisis on Turkey. His fears on that score are very real given the duplicitous track record of these powers.

A further rebounding problem is the resurgence in Turkey’s decades-long battle with Kurdish separatists in the PKK. In recent weeks, the death toll among Turkish troops has steadily increased in line with guerrilla attacks as the PKK takes advantage of the cross-border chaos engendered by Erdogan. Turkey’s Kurdish problem threatens to once again flare up into a full-blown war after years of smoldering out of sight. The PKK may be labeled as “terrorists” by the US State Department, but Turkish governments down through the decades stand accused themselves of terrorism and genocidal policy against the Kurdish people living in the southeastern provinces.

Some 40,000 people are estimated to have died in the Turkish state’s internal terror campaign against the Kurds since the 1970s, a campaign that has involved aerial bombing of villages, scorched-earth tactics and displacement of over three million people. This murderous state repression is a major reason why the European Union has for years balked at admitting membership to Ankara. This long sought-after goal for Turkey’s political and business classes is probably made all the more remote in the wake of the Erdogan government’s machinations in Syria with its repercussions of reopening Kurdish wounds.

But perhaps the final match-loser for Erdogan from his recent tirade against Syria as “a terrorist state” is the unwelcome reminder that those words provoke concerning Turkey’s own nefarious history of genocides, not only against Kurds, but also against Armenians, Assyrians and Greeks. These are genocides that occurred less than a hundred years ago, with death tolls that reach into the millions and recall grainy images of appalling human suffering from death marches and starvation. To this day, the Turkish authorities deny that the genocides ever took place and would prefer that the world did not mention such heinous events. But one paradox from Turkey’s self-serving intervention in Syria is that the world is being reminded of Turkey’s own dark, terroristic past.

Ironically, before his back-stabbing escapades over Syria, Recep Tayyip Erdogan had gained much goodwill among ordinary people and governments across the Middle East and beyond as an honest broker with regard to Iran and the Palestinian plight. Now, that popular goodwill seems to have all but vanished as Erdogan sinks more and more into schemes of treachery and state terrorism.

The Turkish footballer-turned-politician may live to rue the day when international public opinion finally gives him the red card for foul play.

September 18, 2012
Syrian opposition group decries insult to Prophet Mohammad

By IANS,

Istanbul: A major Syrian opposition group has expressed its distress over the insults caused by a US movie towards Prophet Mohammad but also stated that it is shocked over some Muslims’ reaction in the form of murder, arson and vandalism.

“We condemn the repeated insults to the noble prophet … and are outraged to see the insults tied to the anniversary of the September 11 attacks, which suggests there is a connection between the event and the tolerant message of Islam,” Xinhua quoted The Syrian National Council as saying in a statement.

“As we condemn the insults and consider them an assault on the feelings and beliefs of nearly one fourth of the population of the globe, we stress the right of everyone who has been offended to express peacefully their rejection and condemnation,” the Istanbul-based Syrian opposition group added.

The group also denounced the killing of the US ambassador and three other US diplomatic staffers in Libya.

On Tuesday night, protesters stormed the US consulate in Libyan city of Benghazi, and set fire to the building to protest against the video allegedly ridiculing Prophet Mohammad.

The film has also ignited protests in Yemen, Iran and Egypt.

via Syrian opposition group decries insult to Prophet Mohammad | TwoCircles.net.

September 15, 2012
Is Turkish camp the Syrian rebels’ HQ?

Thomas Seibert

Sep 5, 2012

ISTANBUL // Turkey is offering more support for Syrian rebel fighters than the government in Ankara is ready to admit, opposition politicians say.

Related

■ More than 100,000 refugees fled Syria last month

■ Syria warned of ‘blistering’ response if it uses bio-weapons

■ Civilians trapped in Syria’s crossfire

Turkish legislators visited a special camp for Syrian military deserters in Apaydin in the southern border province of Hatay yesterday. This camp, two kilometres from the Syrian border and closed to the media, is widely believed to be the headquarters of the rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA) that is fighting to topple Bashar Al Assad’s regime.

Although Turkey hosts leaders of the main body of the political opposition, the Syrian National Council, the Turkish government insists that it is not giving military support to the rebels fighting Mr Al Assad’s security forces.

Turkish opposition leaders have pointed to the Apaydin camp as evidence to the contrary, claiming it houses about 300 Syrian ex-soldiers and policemen, including about 30 former generals, according to Turkish officials.

Riad Al Asaad, the FSA commander, is also believed to be in Apaydin.

“Apaydin is an illegal military base on Turkish territory,” Mehmet Ali Ediboglu, an opposition legislator from Hatay, said yesterday. “There are five or six other places in Hatay with weapons and training facilities” of the FSA, he added. “People in Hatay know the naked truth, but the government keeps telling lies.”

Mr Ediboglu, a member of the Republican People’s Party (CHP), Turkey’s biggest opposition group, said he wanted to visit Apaydin with other politicians 10 days ago but was not allowed to enter the camp. He said by the time yesterday’s visit by the human-rights committee of Turkey’s parliament had been arranged, Apaydin had been cleared of weapons.

“We don’t assume that, we know that,” he said, adding his party was boycotting the visit.

Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the CHP leader, also boycotted the visit but said FSA activities in Apaydin violated international law. “People undergoing military training there cross over into Syria and take part in the fighting,” Mr Kilicdaroglu said according to Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency.

Two other opposition parties did visit the camp.

Mr Ediboglu and other opposition members also drew attention to a recent statement posted on the FSA’s website that defined Hatay as the rebel army’s “main base”. The website has been changed and says the FSA’s main base is in Damascus. But the rebels provide a Turkish telephone number.

Last week, an unnamed FSA member from Apaydin camp told reporters outside the camp that the rebels had training facilities across the border on Syrian territory and were going into Syria and back to Turkey on a daily basis. “But the Republic of Turkey has asked us not to walk around with weapons during the day”, he said.

News reports said that the FSA, not Turkish forces, controlled the camp. But Turkey’s state agency for disaster relief, which runs the camps housing about 80,000 Syrian refugees along the border, issued a statement on its website to deny the claims.

Mr Ediboglu said that apart from the FSA, many Islamist fighters from countries such as Afghanistan were using Hatay as a base for entering Syria. “There are armed foreigners walking around here, but the government keeps saying that there is no problem.”

A Turkish government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, rejected the accusations. “There are no weapons or training facilities in Apaydin,” the official said. Ankara says access to the camp is restricted because of concerns for the safety of the ex-soldiers there and their 2,500 family members that are staying with them.

Speaking after yesterday’s visit in Apaydin, Sefer Ustun, the head of the human-rights commission and a member of the ruling Justice and Development Party, also denied charges that the camp was being used as a military base. Mr Ustun told Anadolu that 80 per cent of the people in the camp were women and children. “Seen in that light, other things are not possible here anyway,” he said

via Is Turkish camp the Syrian rebels’ HQ? – The National.

September 5, 2012