Saying that Syria is like a powder barrel that will affect many countries in the event of an explosion, Taraf’s Ahmet Altan argues that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is right in his strict opposition to Assad and in saying, “Assad will eventually be brought to account for what is happening in Homs.” Altan says Erdoğan had to follow this policy for the sake of maintaining good relations with the US. “Now that Erdoğan has lost his popularity and prestige in the Middle East, Erdoğan has no other leg to stand on apart from the US. Without the US, Turkey will have no connection with the Western part of the world. So the Syria issue actually serves Erdoğan well by being on the same side as the US and sustaining his image as a just leader,” says Altan. He also expresses his concerns over the government keeping its strong stance in the event of a war. Making a reference to the government’s failure in dismissing its citizens’ worries and anger in the Uludere incident -- in which 34 civilians were mistakenly killed by the military, raising concerns over the reliability of the military -- Altan points out that the government will have a hard time adopting a determined stance if it becomes more embroiled in the affairs of a country in conflict.
Warning we should not cross the bridge until we come to it, Radikal’s Cengiz Çandar, on the other hand, finds it too soon to find answers to the questions of the possibility of a war in the region. Çandar underlines that the crises in Syria might lead to unintended consequences. “Relations between Syria and Turkey have seen many changes over the last year. We were at first on very good terms with Syria; the Erdoğans and Assads even had a family friendship. However, in light of the developments in Syria’s domestic and foreign affairs, Turkey had to take a stand against the Syrian regime and reached a point where it is hosting Syrians escaping from the Syrian regime. And now Syria is on a slippery slope and moving very fast. New developments and offers from international communities to Syria may emerge, but what Turkey must do primarily is to decide whether or not it will intervene in Syria, with which we share a 911-kilometer-long border.
Saying that Assad has put coffins before his people instead of ballot boxes, Bugün’s Erhan Başyurt notes that although Assad is a doctor, he preferred to take lives instead of saving them. “I cannot understand why a leader who has seen what happened to Saddam, Gaddafi, Mubarak and other dictatorships in the region acts in the same way as those leaders. And I do not understand why Russia and China, permanent members of the UN Security Council, have made a habit of backing the wrong horse in the race. We will never forget that in the Serbs’ massacre of Bosnians, Russia supported Slobodan Milosevic, the former president of Serbia and Yugoslavia, who then directed an appalling battery of attacks against the civilians of Sarajevo, and I am afraid the same thing is happening in Syria.
