US readies Turkey to speak-head Conquest of Syria

Turkey, US hold “operational” meeting on Syria
23 August, 2012 – Al Akhbar

Turkish and US officials Thursday began their first “operational planning” meeting aimed at bringing about the end of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s embattled regime.

The meeting is expected to coordinate military, intelligence and political responses to the crisis in Syria where a deadly crackdown on peaceful protests that began in March 2011 has, according to the United Nations, claimed more than 18,000 lives.

Turkish foreign ministry deputy under-secretary Halit Cevik and US ambassador Elisabeth Jones are leading the delegations made up of intelligence agents, military officials and diplomats at the meeting in Ankara, a foreign ministry source told AFP.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Turkey’s Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu had announced their plans for such a mechanism to hasten the end of Assad’s regime on August 11.

Thursday’s meeting come just days after US President Barack Obama warned Syria that any movement or usage of its chemical weapons would be a “red line” that would change his perspective on how to respond to the conflict.

Syria has said it would not use its chemical weapons against rebels, reserving them only for “external aggressors,” in a veiled reference to a potential Israeli or Turkish strike on the country.

On Monday, Davutoglu said Turkey can handle no more than 100,000 Syrian refugees and has proposed setting up a UN buffer zone inside Syria to shelter them.

Some analysts believe Turkey is attempting to build a case for Turkish military intervention, having previously threatened to enter Syria to crush Kurdish rebels suspected of moving into the country’s northeast.

The threat of armed groups including the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and al-Qaeda which could exploit a power vacuum in Syria is also expected to figure high on the agenda of the Ankara meeting.

In Istanbul, Clinton had said she shared “Turkey’s determination that Syria must not become a haven for PKK terrorists whether now or after the departure of the Assad regime.”

The PKK are a Kurdish separatist group that has waged a military campaign against Ankara since 1984 in a bid to gain greater Kurdish autonomy in Turkey’s southeast. …more