Turkey sends mixed signals over
Syria By Al-Jazeera
Correspondents
DOHA - Turkey's parliament
on Thursday authorized cross-border military
action against Syria, if deemed necessary by the
government. The mandate, valid for one year, was
passed by 320 votes in the 550-seat Turkish
parliament, the Anatolia news agency reported on
Thursday.
Besir Atalay, one of Turkey's
deputy prime ministers, said
authorizing the use of force
in Syria was not a declaration of war but was
intended as a deterrent.
The vote came as
Turkey resumed shelling Syrian government military
positions on Thursday morning in retaliation for a
mortar attack which landed over its border in
southeastern Turkey killing five of its citizens -
a woman and four children from the same family.
"The Syrian side has admitted what it did
and apologized," Atalay said.
Turkish
state media said that the attacks by artillery
units based in the border town of Akcakale were
continuing.
Several Syrian troops were
killed as a result of overnight Turkish shelling
at a base near the Syrian border town of Tal
al-Abyad, a UK-based Syrian activist group said.
However, Turkish Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdogan said the authorization was purely
deterrence and that his country had no intention
of declaring war on Syria, pointing out that the
shelling - now in its second day - should be seen
as a "warning" to the authorities in Damascus.
"We want peace and security and nothing
else. We could never be interested in something
like starting a war," Erdogan said at a news
conference in Akcakale on Thursday evening.
"The Turkish Republic is a state capable
of defending its citizens and borders. Nobody
should try and test our determination on this
subject."
Thousands of people gathered in
Istanbul's Taksim Square on Thursday for an
anti-war rally. Demonstrators chanted: "No to war!
Peace now! We won't be soldiers of imperialists!"
reported the BBC.Some banners accused Erdogan's
Justice and Development Party (AKP) of being a
stooge of the US.
The parliament had
already been due to vote on Thursday on extending
a five-year-old authorization for foreign military
operations, an agreement originally intended to
allow strikes on Kurdish bases in northern Iraq.
'The last straw' The memorandum
signed by Erdogan and sent to parliament overnight
said that despite repeated warnings and diplomatic
initiatives, the Syrian military had launched
aggressive action against Turkish territory,
presenting "additional risks".
"This
situation has reached a level of creating a
serious threat and risks to our national security.
At this point the need has emerged to take the
necessary measures to act promptly and swiftly
against additional risks and threats," it said.
In the most serious cross-border
escalation of the 18-month uprising in Syria,
Turkey hit back after what it called "the last
straw" when a mortar hit a residential
neighborhood of the southern border town of
Akcakale on Wednesday.
Security sources
said the mortar had come from near Tal al-Abyad
and that Turkey was increasing the number of
troops along its border.
"Our armed forces
in the border region responded immediately to this
abominable attack in line with their rules of
engagement; targets were struck through artillery
fire against places in Syria identified by radar,"
Erdogan's office said in a statement late on
Wednesday.
"Turkey will never leave
unanswered such kinds of provocation by the Syrian
regime against our national security."
Syria said it was investigating the source
of the mortar bomb and urged restraint.
Information Minister Omran Zoabi conveyed his
condolences to the Turkish people, saying his
country respected the sovereignty of neighboring
countries.
Following the attack, Bulent
Arinc, another deputy prime minister, said Turkey
was "not blinded by rage".
"There is
definitely a response to it (the attack) in
international law ... We are not blinded by rage,
but we will protect our rights to the end in the
face of such an attack on our soil that killed our
people."
Al Jazeera's Andrew Simmons,
reporting from Antakya on the Turkish-Syrian
border, said Arinc's mention of "certain
responsibilities" contained within NATO treaty
articles could mean that Turkey responded without
consulting international bodies first.
'Breach of peace' NATO said it
stood by member-nation Turkey and urged Syria to
put an end to "flagrant violations of
international law".
Al Jazeera's Anita
McNaught, reporting from Akcakale, said that one
has to ask the question of whether Syria "would
want to draw Turkey into the conflict, and would
Turkey want this to be the start of a larger and
widening escalation of the battle regionally".
The US-led Western military alliance held
an urgent late night meeting in Brussels to
discuss the matter.
That meeting was only
the second time in NATO's 63-year history that
members had convened under Article 4 of its
charter, which provides for consultations when a
member state feels its territorial integrity,
political independence or security is under
threat.
Turkey also asked the UN Security
Council to take the "necessary action" to stop
Syrian "aggression".
In a letter to the
president of the 15-nation Security Council,
Ertugrul Apakan, Turkey's UN ambassador, called
the firing of the mortar bomb "a breach of
international peace and security".
UN
diplomats said Security Council members hoped it
would issue a non-binding statement on Thursday
that would condemn the mortar attack "in the
strongest terms" and demand an end to violations
of Turkey's territorial sovereignty.
Members had hoped to issue the statement
on Wednesday, but Russia - a staunch ally of
Syria, which along with China has vetoed three UN
resolutions condemning President Bashar al-Assad's
government - asked for a delay, diplomats said.
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