ANTAKYA, Turkey (Reuters) - Helicopter gunships bombarded a strategic town
in northern Syria overnight and tanks moved close to the commercial hub of
Aleppo, rebels said, but kept well clear of new Turkish air defences
installed to curb Syrian action near its frontiers.
Turkish commanders inspected the missile batteries deployed on the border
region on Thursday following Syria's shooting down of a Turkish warplane a
week ago, which has sharply raised tensions between the two nations.
The Turkish deployments, a graphic warning to President Bashar al-Assad,
coincide with rising violence across Syria and increasingly urgent
international efforts to forge a peace deal as the nation slips into
full-blown war.
As the Turkish-Syrian dimension ratcheted up further pressure, peace envoy
Kofi Annan said on Friday he was "optimistic" that crisis talks in Geneva on
Saturday would produce an acceptable outcome, which has so far proved
elusive.
Senior officials holding preparatory talks in Geneva on Friday failed to
overcome differences on Annan's plan for a political transition. Western
diplomats said Russia was pressing for changes to the text. Russian
diplomats said the work continued but they would not "impose" a solution on
Syria.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said after meeting U.S. Secretary of
State Hillary Clinton over dinner in St. Petersburg that he saw a "very good
chance" of finding common ground when the group of foreign ministers met
Annan in Geneva.
A senior U.S. State Department official said, however, that differences
remained between Washington and Moscow on Syria. Of the chances of an accord
when the ministers met again in Geneva, the official said: "We may get there
tomorrow. We may not."
Regional analysts said that while neither Turkey nor its NATO allies
appeared to have any appetite to enforce a formal no-fly zone over Syrian
territory, Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan had made it clear Assad would be
risking what he called the 'wrath' of Turkey if its aircraft strayed close
to its borders.
Erdogan told a rally in the eastern city of Erzurum on Friday, broadcast by
Turkish television: "We will not hesitate to teach a lesson to those who aim
heavy weapons at their own people and at neighbouring countries."
Recently, there were clashes close to the border between Syrian forces and
rebels. Last weekend, Damascus said "terrorists" infiltrating from Turkey
were killed and there have been reports of Syrian forces shooting into camps
for refugees in Turkey.
The United States, Britain and France have said that Assad is responsible
for the violence, which the United Nations estimates has killed at least
10,000 people, and is no longer fit to govern. Russia and China, however,
reject what they describe as Western calls for "regime change".
Turkey, sheltering some 34,000 Syrian refugees and providing bases for the
rebel Free Syria Army (FSA), is in the forefront of the efforts to bring
down Assad.
SYRIAN TANKS MASS
The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 190 people,
including 125 civilians, were killed on Thursday.
General Mustafa al-Sheikh, head of the Higher Military Council, a grouping
of senior officers who defected from Assad's forces, said around 170 Syrian
tanks had assembled at an infantry school near the village of Musalmieh
northeast of the city of Aleppo, just 30 km (19 miles) from the Turkish
border.
"They're either preparing to move to the border to counter the Turkish
deployment or attack the rebellious (Syrian) towns and villages in and
around the border zone north of Aleppo," Sheikh told Reuters by telephone
from the border.
Omar Abdallah, an activist in Idlib coordinating with the Free Syrian Army
said: "After taking hits in rural Aleppo and Idlib, the army is re-grouping
... There is speculation that these forces intend to ring Aleppo, starting
July 1."
Rebel sources in Turkey's Hatay region said Assad's helicopters attacked
Saraqeb, a strategic town deep in Idlib province, but kept away from the
area directly along the Turkish border in the rural regions of Idlib and
Aleppo provinces.
Neither Turkey, which fears a local clash escalating into a regional
sectarian conflagration, nor Syria, has any interest in a confrontation on
their shared border.
Ankara, which has the second biggest army in NATO, called an emergency NATO
meeting after its warplane was shot down.
Turkey has in the past talked about creating a humanitarian corridor on
Syrian territory if refugee flows became dangerously unmanageable or the
scale of killing in Syria became intolerable. But it had always said this
would require international endorsement.
"NATO just doesn't look like it's in the mood," David Hartwell, Middle East
analyst at IHS Jane's, said. "What you might get is the Turks forcing a de
facto no-fly zone."
SQUARING UP?
Erdogan announced earlier this week that he had issued new rules of
engagement to his border troops and said any Syrian military elements
approaching Turkish borders and deemed a threat would be treated as a
target. But he failed, perhaps deliberately, to specify how close Syrian
forces could come to the border before becoming vulnerable.
Rebels sources said they saw two Syrian attack helicopters on Friday, flying
about 4 km from the Turkish border in Idlib province and landing at an army
base at Bab al-Hawa, close to Reyhanli, one of the places where Turkey has
stationed anti-aircraft defences.
It was the first time aircraft had been spotted close to the border and
appeared to test Turkey's new rules of engagement.
"The Syrians might accept a very narrow zone along the border. Syria will
remain very reluctant to get involved in any conflict with Turkey. They
would be up against a very serious military foe," said Malcolm Chalmers,
research director at Britain's Royal United Services Institute.
The world has been accused by Syrian opposition activists of inertia over
the bloodshed. Diplomacy has failed to produce agreement between Western
powers, backing the opposition, and Russia, which has used its U.N. veto to
block Western and Sunni Arab moves to drive Assad from power.
Ahead of Saturday's meeting, Russia proposed changes to Annan's plan for a
national unity government in Syria, despite initially supporting it, but the
United States, Britain and France rejected the amendments, Western diplomats
said.
Russia and the other permanent U.N. Security Council members told Annan this
week they supported a transitional cabinet that could include government and
opposition members but would "exclude ... those whose continued presence and
participation would undermine the credibility of the transition and
jeopardise stability and reconciliation", according to Annan's proposal.
Diplomats told Reuters that Annan's idea of excluding certain people was
clearly referring to Assad.
Although Russia signalled to Annan this week that his plan was acceptable,
foreign minister Lavrov reversed course on Thursday, diplomats said.
Diplomats said the Russians demanded that Annan remove from his proposal the
language about excluding people from a Syrian national unity government.
Annan had made preliminary acceptance of his guidelines for a political
transition for Syria a condition for organising Saturday's meeting of
foreign ministers in Geneva. It is to include Clinton and Lavrov and
colleagues from Britain, France, China, Turkey, Iraq, Kuwait and Qatar. Iran
and Saudi Arabia, regional powers deeply at odds over Syria, were not
invited.
"I think we are going to have a good meeting tomorrow," Annan told Reuters
Television on Friday. "I am optimistic."
Assad on Thursday dismissed the notion of any outside solution to the
16-month-old uprising against his rule.
"We will not accept any non-Syrian, non-national model, whether it comes
from big countries or friendly countries. No one knows how to solve Syria's
problems as well as we do."
(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva, Erika Solomon and Mariam Karouny
in Beirut and Andrew Quinn and Liza Dobkina in St. Petersburg; Writing by
Ralph Boulton and Peter Millership; Editing by Janet McBride and Alastair
Macdonald)
C Thomson Reuters 2012 All rights reserved
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Received on Fri Jun 29 2012 - 16:35:51 EDT
