{"id":2571,"date":"2012-10-05T08:55:06","date_gmt":"2012-10-05T08:55:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/praag.org\/?p=2571"},"modified":"2012-10-05T08:55:06","modified_gmt":"2012-10-05T08:55:06","slug":"turkish-parliament-votes-for-cross-border-military-operations-in-syria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praag.org\/?p=2571","title":{"rendered":"Turkish parliament votes for cross-border military operations in Syria"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Turkey\u2019s parliament has authorized cross-border military operations into Syria. The move follows a cross-border mortar-shelling into Turkey which Damascus has apologized for.<\/p>\n

The Turkish parliament voted 320-129 in favor of the bill, though the government was quick to eliminate the perception they country preparing for a unilateral military assault.<\/p>\n

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey “does not want to “start a war”\u00a0<\/em> with Syria while speaking at a press conference on Thursday evening .<\/p>\n

“All we want in this region is peace and security. We have no intention of starting war. We are aware of the outcome, consequences, of war in Iraq and Afghanistan\u2026we see the same in Syria,” <\/em>Al Jazeera cites him as saying. But Errdogan warned the country was capable of defending itself against threats after he claimed that new shells coming from Syria had landed on Turkish soil on Thursday.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

“An accident can be called ‘an accident’ once, twice, three times, but four, five six times,” <\/em>Errdogan continued.<\/p>\n

His statements regarding the bills follow those made by Deputy Prime Minister Besir Atalay following the vote on Thursday.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThe bill is not for war\u2026 It has deterrent qualities,\u201d he said. <\/em><\/p>\n

Atlay stressed that Turkey\u2019s priority was to act in conjunction with \u201cinternational institutions\u201d <\/em>on Syria. He further said the Syrian government “has admitted what it did and apologized. <\/em>The deputy premier added that Syria had given its assurances “such an incident would not be repeated.”<\/em><\/p>\n

Following an exchange of fire at the Syrian-Turkish border, the US and NATO have condemned Syria and pledged to support Turkey. The White House has called for more pressure to be exerted on Damascus.<\/p>\n

NATO’s North Atlantic Council has convened tonight for an urgent meeting upon the request of Turkey, to discuss the shelling of the town of Akcakale.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe most recent shelling on 3 October 2012, which caused the death of five Turkish citizens and injured many, constitutes a cause of greatest concern for, and is strongly condemned by, all Allies<\/em>,\u201d NATO said in a statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the spirit of indivisibility of security and solidarity deriving from the Washington Treaty, the Alliance continues to stand by Turkey and demands the immediate cessation of such aggressive acts against an Ally, and urges the Syrian regime to put an end to flagrant violations of international law<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to officials the meeting has been held under article 4 of NATO\u2019s code, concerning consultations when a member state feels territorial integrity is under threat.<\/p>\n

Syria’s UN envoy said on Thursday that \u201cSyrian authorities confirmed that they are seriously investigating the source of the [attack] that lead to the death of Turkish citizens.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Ambassador Bashar Ja’afari read out a letter which had been delivered to the UN Security Council expressing Syria’s “deepest condolences”<\/em> to the families of the victims which killed five civilians in southeast Turkey.<\/p>\n

He called for both sides to act “wisely”<\/em> and “rationally”<\/em>, saying that “undisciplined, armed terrorists”<\/em> operating on the countries’ shared border posed a threat not only to Syria, but the greater region. He further claimed the long Turkish-Syrian border had been used as a conduit for terrorists to smuggle arms into Syria.<\/p>\n

Ja’afari insinuated the Turkish response to the incident had been disproportionate, however, saying that Turkey had shelled southern Syria for nearly 12 hours straight following Wednesday’s attack.<\/p>\n

A document posted online by an al-Qaeda affiliated group called the al-Nusra Front claimed responsibilty for the multiple bombings.<\/p>\n

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in contrast was quick to condemn Syria for Wedensday’s mortar attack in Turkey. “We are outraged that the Syrians have been shooting across the border. We are very regretful about the loss of life that has occurred on the Turkish side. We are working with our Turkish friends.”<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00adAfter the Turkish parliament approved military operations against Syria, thousands of anti-war protesters took to the streets of the biggest Turkish city, Istanbul. About 5,000 people joined an anti-war rally that finally turned into an anti-government demonstration against Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party, headed by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.<\/p>\n

Anti-war protests near the parliament in the capital, Ankara, turned violent, with protesters clashing with police who tried to prevent demonstrators from moving around the capital.<\/p>\n

\u00adAfter a heated debate an urgent parliamentary session has opted to apply the new law.<\/p>\n

Originally the bill targeted militants of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) fighting for independent Kurd state for the last three decades. The Kurds have bases in northern Iraq, de-facto not controlled by the government in Baghdad. The Turkish military has conducted a number of air and ground assaults on Kurdish positions in Iraq, most of them considered successful.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Turkey\u2019s parliament has authorized cross-border military operations into Syria. The move follows a cross-border mortar-shelling into Turkey which Damascus has apologized for. The Turkish parliament voted 320-129 in favor of the bill, though the government was quick to eliminate the perception they country preparing for a unilateral military assault. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan … Continue reading “Turkish parliament votes for cross-border military operations in Syria”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2572,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,123],"tags":[198,1632,745],"class_list":["post-2571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-world","tag-syria","tag-turkey","tag-usa"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/nato.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2571"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2571\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2574,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2571\/revisions\/2574"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}