Turkey warns Syria against cross-border shelling

11 Oct, 2012

Turkey's military chief of staff said on Wednesday his troops would respond with greater force if bombardments from Syria keep hitting Turkish territory. Several mortar bombs landed outside the Syrian border town of Azmarin and heavy machinegun fire could be heard from the Turkish side as clashes between the Syrian army and rebels intensified along the border.
Plumes of smoke rose into the sky and cries of "God is Greatest" rang out between the bursts of gunfire. Turkey's armed forces have bolstered their presence along the 900-km (560-mile) border and have been responding over the past week to gunfire and shelling coming across from northern Syria, where President Bashar al-Assad's forces have been battling rebels who control swathes of territory.
"We responded but if it continues we will respond with greater force," state television TRT quoted Turkey's Chief of Staff, General Necdet Ozel, as saying. General Ozel visited the family of five civilians killed last week by a Syrian mortar strike in the town of Akcakale before flying by helicopter to a military base further east along the frontier.
Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, once an ally of Assad but now one of his harshest critics, said in Istanbul that Turkey's objective was to secure peace and stability in the region, not to interfere in Syria's domestic politics. "We warned Assad. We reminded him of the reforms he should introduce...unfortunately the Assad regime didn't keep its promises to the world and its own people," Erdogan said.
"Nobody should or can expect us to remain silent in the face of the violent oppression of people's rightful demands." The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 70 people had been killed across the country on Wednesday, including six rebels in the strategic town of Maarat al-Nuaman, on the north-south highway linking Aleppo to the capital Damascus.
Activists and rebels had said on Tuesday that the insurgents seized control of the town after a 48-hour battle but clashes continued in and around Maarat al-Nuaman on Wednesday. Rebels said they halted an army push to retake the town on Wednesday in heavy fighting that killed 30 rebels and scores of government soldiers.
"It was stopped at a heavy cost," Abu Musab Taha, a rebel commander in the area told Reuters. Scores of Syrian civilians, many of them women with screaming children clinging to their necks, crossed a narrow river marking the border with Turkey as they fled the fighting in Azmarin and surrounding villages. Doctors and volunteers set up makeshift first aid points on both sides of the frontier. A Turkish ambulance and several minibuses and cars waited to take the more seriously wounded to the main city of Antakya or district hospitals. The Syrian government said on Wednesday that an appeal by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon for a cease-fire was only acceptable if the rebel forces agreed to abide by it too. Foreign Ministry spokesman Jihad Makdissi said two previous attempts at a cease-fire had broken down when the rebels carried out attacks. UN observers at the time said government forces had also violated the truce.

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