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Turkey pressures Syria to stop crackdown
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan phoned Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to urge “restraint,” the prime minister's office said, while Turkey's ambassador to Damascus met Syrian Prime Minister Adel Safar to express Turkey's “deep concern and sorrow over the loss of many lives.”
Erdoğan called Assad a day after he and US President Barack Obama voiced their concern in a telephone conversation over what the White House called “the Syrian government's unacceptable use of violence against its own people.” The Syrian army launched a deadly raid on the southern Syrian city of Daraa before dawn Monday, killing at least 11 people. Gunfire echoed in Daraa, where the uprising in Syria started more than a month ago, on Tuesday as residents said the dead still lay in the streets. With Ankara's concerned eyes closely following the unrest in neighboring Syria, its ambassador in Damascus will tomorrow brief the influential National Security Council (MGK), diplomatic sources told Today's Zaman.
Turkey’s Ambassador to Syria Ömer Önhon met over the weekend with Syrian Prime Minister Safar to discuss escalating tension in the country and the progress the Syrian government has made in implementing reform promises in response to the demands of anti-government protesters. Önhon was set to depart for Ankara today in order to present his briefing tomorrow at the meeting of the MGK, which brings together the president, top military commanders and government leaders, the diplomatic sources said.
In a related development, according to a report by Turkish daily newspaper Sabah published on Tuesday, US CIA chief Leon Panetta spent five days in the Turkish capital at the end of March discussing regional tensions as Syria became the latest Mideast country to erupt in protests.
The visit to meet with Turkish officials including intelligence chief Hakan Fidan, head of the National Intelligence Organization (MİT), who according to Sabah was sent to Syria by Prime Minister Erdoğan last month to meet Syrian President al-Assad, was not announced to the public. Officials at the US Embassy, approached by Today’s Zaman on Tuesday, neither confirmed nor denied the report.
Panetta’s talks included planning for possible regime change in Syria and ensuring the safety of the Assad family, Sabah wrote without saying how it got the information. The talks also touched on the fighting in Libya, Turkish-Israeli relations, intelligence-sharing in Iraq, cooperation in Afghanistan and the fight against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), Sabah said.
During the meeting with Syrian Prime Minister Safar, Önhon underlined that Syrian people’s soundness and welfare has been a priority for Turkey, Turkish diplomatic sources said, the Anatolia news agency reported late on Monday. The deep concern and sadness over the loss of many lives in the recent incidents has been conveyed to Safar, the diplomatic sources also said.
Önhon told Safar that Turkey has welcomed statements by the Syrian administration, which says a series of reforms that will meet the legitimate demands of the people will be implemented, the sources told Anatolia. The ambassador has reiterated Turkey’s views of the situation in Syria which are: acting with the utmost moderation in this period in Syria; avoiding disproportionate and extreme use of force; continuation and completion of reform works with determination; acting in a way compatible with the spirit of the announced reforms; rebuilding societal peace; and avoiding actions which will further escalate the incidents. During the meeting with Safar, Önhon also reiterated Turkey’s readiness to lend its best support for getting reforms carried out, the sources said.
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