(Hurriyet-Turkey) Mehmet Ali Birand - Ankara is gradually losing hope and distancing itself from Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The viewpoint of Damascus on Turkey is also changing. The embraces and words of fraternity of the past do not exist anymore. On Syrian state television, it is now openly said that the weapons of Muslim Brothers are coming from Turkey. Turkish involvement behind the rebellions and the Antalya meeting of Syrian dissidents is being discussed. If the internal conflict transforms into an Alawite-Sunni clash, what is expected as a consequence is the flow of tens of thousands of Sunni Syrians to Turkey. An official I spoke to said: "Turkey has opened its territory for now, but when the figure reaches a point where we cannot handle it then we will have to close the border....But we cannot turn our backs on neither the Sunnis nor the Alawites. If chaos starts, then we will have to form a security zone or a buffer zone inside Syrian territory."
2011-06-17 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive