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Foreign Ministry denies report that Turkish military may invade Syria
Ünal told Today's Zaman that “the allegations raised in a Kuwaiti newspaper report do not represent the truth whatsoever and it was obviously based on false reporting.”
Kuwaiti newspaper As-Seyassah reported on Monday that Turkish officials had told Western countries that Turkey might launch a military operation in Syria's north to overthrow President Assad's regime. “Turkey informed Britain, France, Italy, Germany and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) leadership of the possibility that it would launch an offensive in … Aleppo, Homs, Hama and Latakia,” As-Seyassah daily quoted an unnamed British officials as saying. The As-Seyassah report was carried by the Lebanese news website nowlebanon.com.
The Turkish Foreign Ministry underlined, however, that the allegations were simply not true and that the report was based on false information. The Syrian government's crackdown on anti-regime protesters has brought once-close Turkish-Syrian relations to a breaking point, with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan describing the Syrian response to protests as “savagery.”
Earlier, a columnist for Lebanese daily al-Akhbar, said to be close to Hezbollah, claimed that Iran had threatened Turkey that if it were to be used as a platform for NATO action against Syria, then Iran would bomb US and NATO bases in Turkey. That suggestion was also denied by the Iranian Foreign Ministry earlier this week.
“There have been reports that NATO will attack Syria from its bases in Turkey and that Iran has threatened Turkey. These are untrue claims that the Western media is trying to spread,” Ramin Mehmanparast, the spokesman for the Iranian Foreign Ministry, told a news conference in Tehran on Tuesday, underlining that Iran and Turkey have very good relations.
The Turkish criticism of the Syrian response to anti-regime protesters led to suggestions that a deterioration in Turkish-Syrian ties could pave the way for improvement of Turkish-Israeli ties, which have been at a standstill since Israeli commandos killed eight Turks and one Turkish-American on an aid ship trying to break an Israeli blockade of Gaza on May 31, 2011.
On June 26, the Turkish Foreign Ministry denied a separate report that a senior Israeli official had talks with Turkish leaders in Ankara to discuss the restoration of military and intelligence collaboration between Turkey and Israel in the eastern Mediterranean amid Turkish-Syrian tension. The report was published by military intelligence website DEBKAfile.
“Such news stories aim to disinform the public opinion. We invite the regional and international public opinion to be cautious while considering stories of that sort,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement released on June 26.
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