Turkey starts military drill at Syrian border

ANKARA/PRETORIA
The Turkish military stages an exercise near the Syrian border as Prime Minister Erdo?an signals sanctions are on the way against Syria

Turkey will lay out new sanctions against Syria soon, visiting Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdo?an says in the South Africa. AFP photo

Turkey will consider more sanctions against Syria as it cannot stand idly by while Damascus shoots demonstrators, the country’s prime minister said Tuesday, the same day the Turkish military announced plans to conduct exercises near its southern border.
There can be no justification for killing defenseless people, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdo?an said Tuesday in Pretoria at a joint press conference with Deputy South African President Kgalema Motlanthe.
Stepping up pressure on embattled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Erdo?an said he would lay out Turkey’s plans for sanctions against Damascus after he visits a Syrian refugee camp near the two countries’ common border in the coming days.
“Regarding sanctions, we will make an assessment and announce our road map after the visit to [the southern province of] Hatay, setting out the steps,” Erdo?an told reporters, adding that he expected to visit the region on the weekend or at the start of next week.
The prime minister is expected to announce new sanctions during the trip.
Turkey has begun partially implementing some sanctions, the prime minister said, but added that it had chosen not to announce them officially because of the urgency of the matter.
The plan for more sanctions heralds a further deterioration in the previously friendly relations between Ankara and Damascus since the start of al-Assad’s crackdown on protesters. More than 7,500 Syrians have taken refuge in camps established in Hatay, having fled the violence at home.

Erdo?an said they had an advanced friendship with al-Assad but added that the Syrian president had betrayed the principles underlying the friendship.

“What is important to us is the Syrian people. The freedoms [in Syria] are disregarded [by the government],” said Erdo?an, adding that al-Assad was repeating his father Hafez al-Assad’s violent campaign against Hama and Homs.

“We never expected that,” said Erdo?an.

Military exercises on Syrian border

Turkey’s military exercises are likely to coincide with Erdo?an planned visit to Hatay. The military said in a statement on its website Tuesday that the maneuvers would take place in the southern province between Oct. 5 and 13. Turkey has earlier said it had stopped two ships carrying arms to Syria.

The aim of the exercises is to test “the mobilization and the communication between the ministries, public institutions and Turkish army in case of a war,” said the military.

At least 2,700 have been killed in the crackdown in Syria, according to the United Nations. Demonstrators have begun to demand some form of international protection that stops short of Libya-style Western military intervention. NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen recently told daily Hürriyet that the conditions in the country were not sufficient to warrant an international intervention.

Compiled from AP, Reuters and AA stories by the Daily News staff.

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