Turkish Military

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Turkish Military

Turkey on Monday announced that it is ready to establish a buffer zone on the Syrian territory to protect civilians, following the surge of civilian refugees who came to Turkey after the regime in Damascus resumed its pounding of the central cities where the unrest against Bashar al-Assad-s regime began more than a year ago.
Turkey announced that it would prefer to have an international backing in establishing the buffer zone to protect its own southern border and the lives of the civilians who flee to escape the security forces sent by Damascus.
A Turkish official told the media on conditions of anonymity that the buffer zone is only one option, and that nothing has been decided yet. Turkey has already received 17,000 Syrian refugees in its refugee camps.
The official said that a huge influx like the one faced during the Gulf War could be expected, and that a buffer zone should be needed in case the atrocities of the Syrian government could reach hundreds of dead per day. “Nobody knows what would happened in such an eventuality,” the official warned.
Turkey has handled the refugees in a orderly fashion, setting refugee camps and offering the refugees IDs so that they may enjoy some freedom of movement. The Turkish Red Crescent warned that if the numbers of refugees keeps on growing, Turkey could have as a worse case scenario to deal with as many as 500,000 Syrians in Turkey. Turkey has a 911-kilometer border with Syria, and there are many places with minefields along it.
Turkey has already closed its embassy in Damascus, motivating that the situation was too volatile to keep it opened. However, the consulate in Aleppo is said to have remained still functional.
A meeting of the Friends of Syria was held in Istanbul, and the opposition leaders said that they needed more support to face Assad’s troops. Turkey and the United States announced that they would help the rebels with “non-lethal” assets.
Turkey is walking a fine line while imposing a buffer zone, because on one hand its security forces may encounter resistance from the Syrian troops, which means it could engage in conflict with the military of a sovereign state.
On the other hand, establishing a buffer zone in Syria means invading a portion of the sovereign territory of Syria. This would anger Russia, which has starkly opposed any invasion of Syria by a military force, vetoing two resolutions of the United Nations Security Council on the grounds that its wording could allow a military intervention the same way the intervention in Libya was made last year.
Turkish officials also manifested concern over the plan of the U.N. and Arab League envoy Kofi Annan, because they fear that Assad is using Annan to buy time and continue his offensive against the civilian people in the restive cities.

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