Tag: Syrian Opposition

What will decide the fate of Syria?

This story by Dmitry Sedov, political scientist, Strategic Culture Foundation expert, was published in International Affairs magazine.

The deeper the crisis in Syria, the more evident it becomes that its former ally, Turkey, has played its part in the process. As the only moderate Islamic NATO member state, Turkey has turned into a springboard for the Syrian opposition. Istanbul announced the creation of a Syrian national council, analogous to the Libyan NTC. Opposition members are actively collaborating with Turkish governmental bodies. Actually, Turkey homes a headquarters of Syrian immigrants who handle all those destructive policies at home. It was Turkey where the so-called Free Syrian Army (FSA) was formed to comprise Syrian deserters. A group of Syrian military men, who reside in a strictly protected refugee camp, have claimed responsibility for the killing of nine Syrian soldiers and an officer on Syrian territory. There is no doubt that the rebels were working off the debts owed to new bosses.

The Turkish authorities say that their relations with the FSA chief Riyad al-Asad and his army are ”purely humanitarian”, while a key task for Ankara there is to ensure security of the FSA members. Turkey’s Foreign Ministry seems to ignore the fact that collaboration with the FSA is the way to cause bloodshed in Syria and not ”to allow the army freely express their political views”.

The Turkish Foreign Ministry even held a press-conference for the FSA chief Riyad al-Asad, who said that his army was ”the leader of the Syrian nation” and would ”fight against the regime until stability and peace come”. At the conference al-Asad was accompanied by ten security guards, a sniper among them. When the conference was over, journalists were told that further contacts with the FSA chief were possible only through Turkey`s Foreign Ministry. Isn`t it the best proof of the FSA being a marionette organization? Apart from the FSA, there are dozens of other militant groups traveling across the Turkish-Syrian border and bringing death and chaos in their native countries.

Hugh Pope of the International Crisis Group thinks that Turkey has been preparing for a massive interference in Syrian domestic policy. He described the alliance of Turkey and the FSA ”a brand new territory”.

Meanwhile, Russia and China have managed to prevent Turkey from interfering into Syria`s home policies. Nevertheless, Ankara has all chances to undermine stability in the neighboring country. Turkey enjoys developed economic ties with Syria, which helps maintain relative stability in the area, for example, in Aleppo, where local businessmen receive big orders from Turkey. If Ankara imposes an economic blockade on Syria, Aleppo`s economy as well as that of other Syrian cities will face a serious blow.

What will Turkey gain from toppling the Assad regime? The answer is linked to the role of Islamic factor in Recep Erdogan`s policy. Islamization of countries affected by the Arab Spring movement, which was initiated by Saudi Arabia, could not but force Turkey to take a step in a similar direction. The Syrian opposition responded to Islamic rhetoric, which is very likely to undermine the position of Damascus. Islamic symbols are being widely used in street protesters in Syria. Trying to leave behind the Saudis, the Erdogan regime has advanced in orchestrating civil unrest in Syria.

It is worth mentioning that when tensions broke out in Syria, Bashar Assad sat down for talks with the opposition to try to improve the situation. He immediately announced reforms demanded by the opposition. Nevertheless, it became clear very soon that those were not reforms which Assad`s critics wanted but the decline of the existing regime. The situation resembles much of that in Libya, which offers us more reasons to suspect that a third country is involved in the conflict.

Supported from abroad, the Syrian opposition took the risk of open confrontation with the regime. Killing the rebels is now the only way to bring peace into the region, otherwise the locals will be again and again forced into clashes with the army. In the past few months, the number of rebels has increased several times, which means that a full-scale military operation is needed to fight against them. Meanwhile, the Assad regime has been carrying out only a defensive policy, thus allowing the rebels to implement their destructive ideas. If the Syrian government fails to announce an offensive, it will face the risk of sharing the fate of Muammar Gaddafi. Assad has no more options except sending troops to restive areas.

Some observers say that Assad lacks enough will to announce such hardline measures. It means that he should be replaced by a more decisive politician, who will be ready to repeat the operation of 1982 when Assad`s father ordered a crackdown on Muslim protesters in Hama. But it was just one restive city at the time, while today the unrest affects many towns all across Syria. So, despite this being a very difficult decision to make, it appears to be the only reasonable solution to the situation, otherwise Syria will face years of bloodshed.

Ankara expects to topple the Assad regime before a civil war begins. Evidently, Erdogan wants a moderate Islamic regime in Syria, which will turn this religiously diverse country into a puppet in the hands of Pan-Turkism. This initiative is likely to be backed in NATO since the alliance is not opposed to moderate Islamists in Damascus: ”controlled by Turkey” will mean ”controlled by NATO”.

The question is whether the Assad government will have the nerve to launch an offensive against the armed opposition? The answer will decide the country’s fate. Mr. Assad has recently announced that the “Libyan scenario” is unlikely to repeat in Syria.:”…Any similar scenario will cost dearly to its producers.”

Well, the problem is that ‘producers’ seem to be ready to pay a very high price…

November 10, 2011
Syria agrees to end crackdown, Arab League says

Cairo (CNN) — Syria has agreed to end its crackdown on anti-government demonstrations, pull troops from the streets and release prisoners jailed during months of protests, the Arab League announced Wednesday.

Yussef al-Ahmad, Syria's ambassador to the Arab League, attends a meeting in Cairo on Wednesday.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government agreed to “stop all violence from any side in order to protect the Syrian citizens,” Qatar’s foreign minister, Sheikh Hamad Bin Jasim, announced after an Arab League meeting in Cairo. The Syrians also agreed to allow Arab League observers and international journalists to into Syria and allow their freedom of movement “in order to witness and document the reality of the developments,” he said.

And in two weeks, they will launch a “national dialogue” moderated by the Arab League, he said.

In response, the Free Syrian Army — a group of military deserters who have helped defend anti-government protesters — said it would abide by the Arab League agreement “as long as the regime commits to the same.”

“And in the case that the regime falls short of meeting the Arab League requirements, we will be compelled to protect the protesters and work on bringing down the regime no matter how much that may cost us,” the group added in a post on its Facebook page.

Syria has made previous pledges to withdraw armed forces from civilian areas. But in some of those cases, they withdrew only armored units and left infantry in place, or returned after a brief pullout. Anti-government activists criticized those steps as efforts by al-Assad’s regime to buy time.

Syria also has made other moves aimed at defusing the protests, including plans to draft a new constitution, but they have failed to appease the demonstrators.

The Arab League declaration came amid reports of more than two dozen deaths across the country on Wednesday.

The Local Coordinating Committees of Syria, an opposition umbrella group, said four people were killed in the suburbs of Damascus, while 21 were killed in the northern province of Homs.

Snipers were deployed in the city of Homs to enforce a curfew, while artillery fire continued in Hama, the group reported. And the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said government forces used tanks and heavy weapons to disperse a large demonstration in al-Hula, while military deserters killed three pro-government “thugs” blamed for killing 11 people at a factory Wednesday morning.

CNN cannot independently verify the reports because the Syrian government has limited access to international news organizations.

Syria is one of several Middle Eastern and North African states swept up in the “Arab Spring” revolts that began in January in Tunisia. The United Nations estimates that more than 3,000 people have died in Syria since unrest broke out in mid-March, when protesters began calling for the end the 40-year-old al-Assad regime.

CNN’s Nada Husseini and Arwa Damon and journalist Ian Lee contributed to this report.

via Syria agrees to end crackdown, Arab League says – CNN.com.

November 3, 2011
Turkey Shelters Anti-Assad Group, the Free Syrian Army

By LIAM STACK

Ed Ou for The New York Times Col. Riad al-As'aad defected from the Syrian military.

ANTAKYA, Turkey — Once one of Syria’s closest allies, Turkey is hosting an armed opposition group waging an insurgency against the government of President Bashar al-Assad, providing shelter to the commander and dozens of members of the group, the Free Syrian Army, and allowing them to orchestrate attacks across the border from inside a camp guarded by the Turkish military.

The support for the insurgents comes amid a broader Turkish campaign to undermine Mr. Assad’s government. Turkey is expected to impose sanctions soon on Syria, and it has deepened its support for an umbrella political opposition group known as the Syrian National Council, which announced its formation in Istanbul. But its harboring of leaders in the Free Syrian Army, a militia composed of defectors from the Syrian armed forces, may be its most striking challenge so far to Damascus.

On Wednesday, the group, living in a heavily guarded refugee camp in Turkey, claimed responsibility for killing nine Syrian soldiers, including one uniformed officer, in an attack in restive central Syria.

Turkish officials describe their relationship with the group’s commander, Col. Riad al-As’aad, and the 60 to 70 members living in the “officers’ camp” as purely humanitarian. Turkey’s primary concern, the officials said, is for the physical safety of defectors. When asked specifically about allowing the group to organize military operations while under the protection of Turkey, a Foreign Ministry official said that their only concern was humanitarian protection and that they could not stop them from expressing their views.

“At the time all of these people escaped from Syria, we did not know who was who, it was not written on their heads ‘I am a soldier’ or ‘I am an opposition member,’ ” a Foreign Ministry spokesman said on the condition of anonymity in keeping with diplomatic protocol. “We are providing these people with temporary residence on humanitarian grounds, and that will continue.”

At the moment, the group is too small to pose any real challenge to Mr. Assad’s government. But its Turkish support underlines how combustible, and resilient, Syria’s uprising has proven. The country sits at the intersection of influences in the region — with Iran, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Israel — and Turkey’s involvement will be closely watched by Syria’s friends and foes.

“We will fight the regime until it falls and build a new period of stability and safety in Syria,” Colonel As’aad said in an interview arranged by the Turkish Foreign Ministry and conducted in the presence of a Foreign Ministry official. “We are the leaders of the Syrian people and we stand with the Syrian people.”

The interview was held in the office of a local government official, and Colonel As’aad arrived protected by a contingent of 10 heavily armed Turkish soldiers, including one sniper.

The colonel wore a business suit that an official with the Turkish Foreign Ministry said he purchased for him that morning. At the end of the meeting, citing security concerns, the colonel and a ministry official advised that all further contact with his group be channeled through the ministry.

Turkey once viewed its warm ties with Syria as its greatest foreign policy accomplishment, but relations have collapsed over the eight months of antigovernment protests there and a brutal crackdown that the United Nations says has killed more than 3,000 people.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey was personally offended by Mr. Assad’s repeated failure to abide by his assurances that he would undertake sweeping reform. Turkish officials predict that the Assad government may collapse within the next two years.

“This pushes Turkish policy further towards active intervention in Syria,” said Hugh Pope, an analyst with the International Crisis Group. He called Turkey’s apparent relationship with the Free Syrian Army “completely new territory.”

via Turkey Shelters Anti-Assad Group, the Free Syrian Army – NYTimes.com.

October 28, 2011
Turkey preparing military intervention in Syria

By Jean Shaoul
22 October 2011

Turkey is playing a major role in preparing a military push on NATO’s behalf into Syria, exploiting and militarising the ongoing popular protests against the repressive Assad regime in order to install an imperialist-backed puppet regime.

The unrest in Syria, now in its seventh month, has been largely led by Islamist forces sponsored by the Gulf monarchies, particularly Saudi Arabia. Turkey’s intervention threatens a full-blown civil war and a wider conflagration in the region.

The most senior Syrian officer to defect, Colonel Riad al-Asaad, has, along with other army personnel, taken refuge in Turkey. According to the Independent newspaper, Turkey has for several months been providing a constant guard for the defectors and is helping them organise a Free Syrian Army.

The newspaper said that the rebels’ aim was to topple the regime of President Bashar al-Assad with a “strategy based on guerrilla attacks and assassinations of security force figures and state-sponsored militias amid signs of growing armed resistance against the regime after months of protests.”

Colonel Asaad said that about 15,000 soldiers, including officers, had already deserted, and that morale in the Syrian army was low. He told Reuters, “Without a war, he [Assad] will not fall. Whoever leads with force cannot be removed except by force.”

He added, “The regime used a lot of oppressive and murderous tactics, so I left…. I will be the face outside for the command inside, because we have to be in a secure area and right now there is no safety in all of Syria.

“We’re in contact with defectors on a daily basis. We coordinate on a daily basis with officers. Our plan is to move to Syria. We’re waiting to find a safe place which we can turn into a leadership base in Syria.”

Colonel Asaad said that he was working with another rebel force inside Syria, the Free Officers Movement, and called for the “international community,” meaning the major imperialist powers, to provide the opposition with arms and enforce a no-fly zone. He told Hurriyet Daily News, “If the international community helps us, then we can do it, but we are sure the struggle will be more difficult without arms.”

There have been reports that Turkey may set up a “buffer zone” or “safe haven” on the Syrian side of the border. This has been denied by Ankara, but the refugee camps it has set up on the Turkish side of the border, holding 10,000 people, contain Syrian insurgents seeking to regroup and rearm under Turkish protection. Any safe haven would in reality be a forward military base from which to supply anti-regime forces.

According to DEBKAfile, a military intelligence web site based in Jerusalem, NATO and Turkey have been planning an intervention in Syria and have discussed “pouring large quantities” of weaponry to arm the opposition against Assad’s forces, as opposed to Libyan-style air strikes. Saudi Arabia has been involved in the discussions, since it plays a key role in providing funds for the Islamists who have led the uprisings.

Furthermore, reports DEBKAfile, Syrian oppositionists “have been training in the use of the new weapons with Turkish military officers at makeshift installations in Turkish bases near the Syrian border.”

In a tacit acknowledgement of the claims, long denied by oppositionists, that the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafist anti-regime elements have been using antitank weapons and heavy machine guns, DEBKAfile reported, “[Syrian forces] are now running into heavy resistance: awaiting them are anti-tank traps and fortified barriers manned by protesters armed with heavy machine guns.”

The London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that army defectors had killed 11 soldiers, including 4 in a bombing in Idlib province in the northwest and five in Homs, and wounded scores of others. This follows an earlier report by the same organisation that more security personnel were now being killed in the conflict than civilians.

Damascus has repeatedly claimed that the unrest was fomented by outside sources. In June, the Assad regime accused Ankara of supporting a rebel incursion into northern Syria at Jisr al-Shughour.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s support for the insurgent forces brings Ankara—NATO’s only member in the Middle East—more closely in line with the Obama administration, which has called for President Assad to step down, although it has publicly ruled out a Libyan-style military intervention.

Two weeks ago, the Turkish army, NATO’s second largest, carried out military manoeuvres in Hatay province on Syria’s northern border. This was formerly part of Syria until ceded by France, as the colonial power in Syria and Lebanon, to Turkey in 1939 to keep Ankara out of World War II.

Last week, following Russia and China’s veto of a US-sponsored United Nations resolution against Syria, Erdogan announced that his country would impose economic sanctions on Syria. This is aimed at bringing about a rift between Syria’s Sunni business elite and the Assad regime. Sanctions are expected to have a major impact on Syria’s economy, particularly in the north and in Aleppo, Syria’s largest city, with which Ankara has developed close trade and investment relations.

These economic sanctions are in addition to Turkey’s embargo on arms to the Assad regime. The Turkish navy has already intercepted arms bound for Syria.

Alongside its military and economic interventions, Ankara has sponsored several conferences aimed at forging a viable political opposition from among Syria’s fractured dissidents that could form the basis for a future government, along the lines of the NATO-backed National Transitional Council in Libya. The absence of a united and coherent opposition has been one of the factors hampering Western efforts to bring down the Assad regime.

Earlier this month, Syrian opposition groups met in Istanbul to form a Syrian National Council (SNC), elect a leadership, and seek support from the “international community” in the form of political pressure and further economic sanctions.

The SNC is a fractious coalition of organisations representing dissident sections of the Syrian bourgeoisie that are seeking to establish their own anti-democratic regime in Damascus with the backing of the various imperialist and regional powers, each of which has its own stooges.

The organisation’s newly elected chairman and spokesperson, Paris-based academic Burhan Ghalioun, said the Council called for peaceful opposition to Assad and opposed foreign intervention in Syria.

But Ghalioun is little more than a front man for the real powers within and behind the SNC. Other members and opposition groups, particularly inside Syria, are calling for international military intervention in the form of no-fly zones over Syria’s borders in the north with Turkey, in the west with Lebanon, and in the south with Jordan, the areas that have seen the fiercest fighting. While ostensibly to “protect civilians,” this is nothing less—as Libya has shown—than a call for close air support to back armed opposition on the ground to government forces.

Turkey’s proxies within the SNC are the Islamists and the Muslim Brotherhood, which are banned in Syria but backed by the Saudis, the Gulf monarchies and forces around former Prime Minister Saad Hariri in Lebanon. Turkey has also enlisted some Kurdish groups that are opponents of Turkey’s Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) to police Syria’s Kurdish population.

Including a token Kurdish presence within the SNC is problematic for Turkey, which is presently involved in heavy fighting with Kurdish forces in northern Iraq. But with or without a Kurdish element, the SNC provides a veneer of legitimacy for Ankara’s intervention in the Syrian conflict.

Representing Washington’s interests in the SNC are the Damascus Declaration group of dissidents, consisting of former regime supporters, members of Syria’s fractious and tiny political parties, nominally “socialist” and “communist,” and Arab nationalists. They were set up and funded by the Bush administration in 2005 to provide the basis for a “colour revolution” in Syria following the crisis provoked by the assassination of the former Lebanese prime minister and billionaire businessman Rafik Hariri, which was attributed by the US to Syria.

The SNC also includes the Local Coordination Committees that organise the protests within Syria, tribal leaders, and other groups such as the Syrian Revolution General Committee.

Earlier this week, the Council met with Ahmet Davutoglu, the Turkish foreign minister, to seek backing for its plans, although this official had earlier denied that such a sensitive meeting was planned. Gulf News reported Davutoglu as saying that Ankara was, if necessary, prepared for an all-out war with Damascus.

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem has warned that his government would take “severe” measures against any country that recognised the SNC and protested Turkey’s imposition of sanctions against his country, saying that “[Turkey’s] hostility will backfire on them.”

The European Union has welcomed the formation of the SNC as a “positive step,” along with the US and Canada, and called for other countries to follow suit. It stopped short of recognising the SNC as the sole legitimate representative of the Syrian people, but the Libyan NTC and the Egyptian opposition group Democratic Coalition for Egypt have done so.

The Qatari Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani was one of the prime movers calling for international intervention against the Gaddafi regime in Libya. His state-backed Al Jazeera network has relentlessly attacked the Syrian regime, causing its bureau chief in Beirut to resign in protest over its blatant propaganda. The sheikh has supported the SNC, stating, “I think this council is an important step and for the benefit of Syria.”

General David Petraeus, who recently became CIA director, met with oppositionists in Turkey last July. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was reported as meeting members of the Syrian opposition for the “first time” on August 2, although she was in Turkey during the meeting of opposition groups that announced the formation of the Syrian National Council.

October 23, 2011
Has Turkey Distanced Itself From Syria?

Michael Rubin | @mrubin1971 10.13.2011 – 12:35 PM

Early on in Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s premiership, he bent over backwards not only to repair Turkey’s traditionally dicey relations with Syria, but also to promote Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. Erdoğan, for example, invited Bashar to vacation in Turkey as Erdoğan’s personal guest, and when tensions rose between Syria and Lebanon during Lebanon’s Cedar Revolution, Erdoğan put Turkey more in Syria’s camp than in Lebanon’s.

Things appeared to turn, however, as Bashar al-Assad’s crackdown on demonstrators accelerated and grew steadily bloodier. Erdoğan on several occasions gave Syria ultimatums to stop and reform or face a cut-off of Turkey’s ties. Too often in Western capitals, Turkey seeks benefit from such rhetoric no matter what the reality of its policy. There was the case, for example, of the forcible return allegedly by Turkey of a Syrian opposition defector to Syria. Now, despite the crackdown and Turkish ultimatums, a Turkish minister is assuring the public that trade with Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria is actually increasing. According to a Turkish wire service:

Turkish Economy Minister Zafer Çağlayan has said Turkey’s trade with Syria continues to increase. Commenting on Syria’s decision to ban import of products that have more than a 5 percent customs duty, Çağlayan said yesterday that Syria has lifted the ban, and thus, Turkey’s exports to Syria maintained the same level with last year. “We have a serious amount of products shipping to the Arabian Peninsula via Syria,” he said.

One of the reasons why it is so important the United States stands up for principle is so few other countries are willing to do so.

via Has Turkey Distanced Itself From Syria? « Commentary Magazine.

October 16, 2011
Analysis: Turkey takes sides on Syria, faces new risks

By Jonathon Burch and Simon Cameron-Moore

ANTAKYA, Turkey/ISTANBUL | Fri Oct 7, 2011 12:11pm EDT

(Reuters) – Turkey is piling pressure on Syria with border military exercises, economic sanctions and the harboring of Syrian opposition groups and army defectors, but Ankara must tread carefully to avoid arousing the suspicion of Arab states or spurring Syrian counter-measures.

Turkey has shifted, in the space of six months, from being Syria’s new best friend forever to a center of gravity for opposition to President Bashar al-Assad outside the country.

Having started out by advising Assad to exercise restraint and make reforms when pro-democracy unrest first erupted in March, Turkey is now on the verge of invoking sanctions against a government it once sat down with for joint cabinet meetings.

Syrian dissidents abroad, and some who have managed to sneak out of the country, have flocked to Istanbul over the past few months to give the revolution a united political front.

And Turkey has given sanctuary to the most senior Syrian military officer to defect, while this week it began maneuvers in a province over which Syria has had longstanding claims.

“Turkey is clearly taking sides now,” said Cengiz Aktar, professor at Istanbul’s Bahcesehir University. “Turkey expects this opposition and the upheaval in the country will eventually finish the job and the revolution will bring an end to the regime.”

But Turkey’s policy shift, which has aligned Ankara more closely with the West, comes with risks.

“Syrian intelligence might use every opportunity to instigate Kurdish violence,” Aktar said, referring to Turkey’s restive minority population.

Aktar said Turkey, whose clout in the Middle East has grown out of a combination of economic growth and secular democracy, could see goodwill evaporate if it is perceived to be meddling in Syria.

“At the end of the day, Turkey risks being told to mind its own business and to first put its house in order. The more it wants to be a soft power the more it is going to be told by the international community to apply the same standards with its Kurds minority.”

For all their closeness over the past decade, the two countries almost went to war in the late 1990s over Syria giving refuge to Kurdish militants fighting the Turkish state.

Living under Turkish protection, Syrian Colonel Riad al-As’aad exhorts his former comrades to desert to organize the armed struggle he believes is needed to drive Assad from power.

“We assure them (the Syrian people) they should be patient, and God willing, very soon, Bashar will be between their hands,” As’aad told Reuters in an interview on Thursday. [nL5E7L642X]

“We must be patient. We hope the Syrian people will be stronger and remain committed to continue to bring down the regime.”

Revolted by the killing of Syrian civilians, and seeing the tide of history turn with the “Arab Spring” of popular uprisings, Turkey has calculated that its long term interest lies in supporting the Syrian people’s struggle for democracy.

That Syria, like Turkey, has a Sunni Muslim majority, while Assad and his clique belong to the Alawite minority, an offshoot of Shi’ite Islam, made that choice even simpler.

The breakdown in their relationship leaves Iran as Syria’s closest backer, though the Russian and Chinese vetoes earlier this week of a U.N. Security Council draft resolution censuring Syria showed Assad retains some support elsewhere.

SANCTIONS

Anti-Assad factions meeting in Istanbul — ranging from Islamists through liberals, along with ethnic and tribal leaders — have coalesced under a revolutionary Syrian National Council with a stated aim of ousting Assad within six months.

Offering itself as a potential future interim government, this broad-based opposition group has helped instill some confidence among governments, like Turkey, who disapprove of Assad but had not known who to support.

Hitherto, they have feared Assad’s fall would leave Syria without a central authority capable of stopping the country sliding into religious, sectarian and ethnic violence.

One Western diplomat, asked about Turkey’s hesitation in the past to ditch Assad, said Ankara had come to see Assad as “the devil we know.”

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, who had previously enjoyed a close rapport with Assad, is expected to visit a camp in the border province of Hatay sheltering some of the 7,500 Syrians who have fled the violence at home.

Due to the death of his mother, Erdogan delayed a visit that had been set for Sunday, but he has already promised to announce sanctions against the Syrian government.

Turkey is expected to freeze bank accounts held by members of Assad’s inner circle, cut ties with Syrian state banks, and halt deals between state-run companies, notably in oil and gas, while avoiding measures that could hurt the people.

Erdogan predicted last month that Assad will be ousted “sooner or later,” but how far he is willing to go to make it happen is an open question.

“What we have at the moment … is a war of words between Assad and Erdogan,” said Gareth Jenkins, an Istanbul-based security analyst. “It’s a bit like two jilted lovers, because they were very, very close. There is a lot of personal spite.”

Compounding tensions this week, Turkey began military exercises in Hatay province, which Syria has had longstanding claims over since it was ceded to Turkey in 1939 when France controlled Syria and Lebanon.

The exercises, relatively small-scale logistical drills involving a large contingent of less experienced reservist troops, are seen as a symbolic reminder to Damascus that the second largest army in NATO is just across the border.

“It is part of the Turkish government’s campaign to apply increased psychological pressure on the regime in Damascus because previous warnings have gone unheeded,” said Fadi Hakura, analyst at Chatham House think-tank in London.

LAST RESORT

Turkey has begun intercepting arms bound for Syria passing through its waters and air space.

Some analysts say it is easy to foresee Turkey eventually helping to equip and organize Syrian rebels, like Colonel As’aad, who want to wage an armed struggle against those units of Assad’s security forces leading the repression of protesters.

Other analysts believe it would be a mistake for Turkey to go beyond support for peaceful protests by letting itself become a rear base for an armed opposition or being seen as a provocateur in Syria’s internal conflict, especially if it developed a stronger sectarian dimension.

Turkey, after all, is vulnerable to mischief-making among ethnic Kurds and developments that could cause unease within its own Alevi minority community.

Speculation keeps resurfacing that Turkey’s military could end up entering Syria to create a buffer zone for the protection of Syrians from Assad’s security forces.

During the 1991 Gulf War, about half a million Iraqi Kurds fled to Turkey, returning only after Western powers, along with Turkish contingents, set up a safe haven across the border.

But analysts see this option still as a last resort for Ankara, and one that is unlikely to be taken without first getting a U.N. mandate.

As it has done in other Arab countries gripped by upheaval, Turkey has played on sentimental attachments to the Ottoman era, when Istanbul counted vast swathes of Arabia, North Africa and the Balkans among its dominions.

Whereas Erdogan has earned admiration among Arabs for championing the Palestinian cause and leading democratic change in Turkey, analysts say Arabs would not like to see Turkish troops crossing into Syria.

“I don’t think Turkey … would be stupid enough to intervene militarily,” Jenkins said. “The Arab world doesn’t want to see Turkish boots on the ground in an Arab country.”

October 8, 2011