1998 Adana Accord as Turkey’s gateway to Syria

Bereaved mother of Ali Shaaban (al-akhbar.com/Haytham Musawi)

Syria-watchers have their eyes trained on Turkey now that Kofi Annan’s mission is twitching in its final death throes.

And Turkish political analyst Abdullah Bozkurt expects Ankara to eventually invoke the 1998 Adana Agreement to justify a military intervention in Syria.

This is after Damascus spurned Annan’s April 10 ceasefire deadline by escalating, instead of abating, its violent crackdown on restive population centers and by firing across its borders overnight, killing TV cameraman Ali Shaaban in Lebanon and wounding Syrian refugees in Turkey.

It was the first time Syrian fire from across the border had hurt people on Turkish soil.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his government would take its own “steps” against Syria if it failed to abide by the April 10 deadline, including measures “we don't want to think about.”

Erdogan's office said the prime minister would pay an official visit to Saudi Arabia later this week to confer on Syria with King Abdullah.

“Turkey... supports illegal Syrian militant groups, supplies them with weapons... and lets them illegally cross into Syria,” Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem said at a press conference with his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, in Moscow. “How can we (fulfill the plan) if there are still illegal arm deliveries and moving of militants from Turkey?”

Muallem said Turkey, in violation of the Annan plan, harbors armed gangs who attack Syrian troops and allows them to smuggle weapons across border, calling its northern neighbor a “part of the problem.”

Turkey has taken in some 4,000 Syrians since last Thursday, pushing up the number of refugees on its soil to over 25,000.

U.S. Senators John McCain and Joseph Lieberman, who met with Turkish President Abdullah Gul Monday in Istanbul, might visit the Syrian refugee camps and monitor the situation on the Turkish-Syrian border

Several scenarios are being floated by the Turkish press, including the setting up of a buffer zone along the 900-kilometer border to protect the large numbers of refugees.

Turkish analyst Abdullah Bozkurt, of Today’s Zaman, believes Ankara is inching toward military intervention in Syria.

Bozkurt says Ankara has been preparing for “the inevitability of sending troops into Syria to establish a humanitarian corridor. The corridor would be used to reach cities and towns under siege and possibly create a safe buffer zone for internally displaced persons (IDPs).” The Turkish Red Crescent (Kizilay) said last week it was getting ready to deliver humanitarian aid to Syria should Turkey or the international community call for a “humanitarian aid corridor” to be carved inside Syrian territory.

In the event Russia and China continue to block UN-mandated action against Syria, Bozkurt writes, “Ankara will probably invoke the 1998 Adana Agreement with Syria to justify the military intervention” and invoke Article 5 of the NATO Charter, which says that an attack on any member shall be considered to be an attack on all. “Since the Assad regime allows the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and its affiliates to launch attacks on Turkish soil and harbors some 1,500 to 2,000 hardcore PKK militants in areas close to the Turkish border, Turkey can very well utilize the NATO security cover for assistance.”

Bozkurt recalls that the governments of Turkey and Syria signed the Adana Agreement on October 20, 1998. In it, Damascus not only agreed to recognize the PKK as a terrorist organization but also pledged to cease all aid to the PKK and to deport its leader Abdullah Ocalan.

The Adana Agreement was complemented by the security agreements of 10 September 2001, 23 December 2009 and 21 December 2010. Bozkurt says the latter, ratified by the Turkish parliament on 6 April 2011, “gives both parties the right to conduct joint operations in each other's territory. If Turkey officially recognized the Syrian National Council (SNC) as sole legitimate representative of Syria, which is likely to happen in the upcoming Paris meeting of the Friends of Syria if Assad failed to follow through on the Annan plan, it could very well secure SNC consent to launch joint operations with the Free Syrian Army against Assad forces.”

Bozkurt says Ankara “clearly prefers the multilateral approach for the time being. But when push comes to shove, Turkey will not hesitate to act alone, as it did in 1998 in Syria or in 1975 in Cyprus. Watch out for the signal that will indicate that Turkey is ready to act: When the government decides to seek a mandate from the Turkish Parliament for troop deployment in a foreign country, as it must according to the Constitution, it would mean the real warning shot for military incursion into Syria has already been fired.”

The "morning after" the Annan-Syria game

By Syrian cartoonist Ali Ferzat

The “morning after” Syria shot down Kofi Annan’s April 10 ceasefire deadline:

• Tariq Alhomayed, editor in chief of Saudi Arabia’s newspaper of record Asharq Alawsat, says the use of force against President Bashar al-Assad and his regime “is imperative now, not only to bring them down but to spare Syrian blood.”
• Ghassan Charbel, Lebanese editor in chief of the Saudi-owned pan-Arab daily al-Hayat, expects the next chapter in Syria to witness “tough and bitter maneuvers.”
• Russian analysts tell RAI Novosti “Annan’s plan won’t stop war in Syria” and Assad’s ouster is looming in the long term.

According to Alhomayed:

Whoever thought the Syrian regime subscribed to the Annan plan made a “grave and unjustified” mistake. The international community is fully aware Assad’s regime never fulfilled a pledge. No bank would give it an advance if it applied for a loan. Everyone should have known this.

Ironically, Annan says he is “shocked by recent reports of a surge in violence and atrocities in several town and villages in Syria… in violation of assurances given to me.” Problem is the international community remains “tongue-tied pending the expiry of Annan’s mission while Assad forces keep up their massacre and ethnic cleansing campaign.”

The international community “colluded with Assad” when it set one target date after another for him to continue his massacre of Syrian civilians.

“Any attempt to stop the crimes of this regime by diplomatic initiatives such as Annan’s, among others, is a misinterpretation of the nature of the tyrant’s regime in Damascus. Assad is getting away with all he is doing for the lack of any deterrence against him on the ground. All he hears is empty rhetoric from Turkey and a deafening silence from Obama, who is busy counting” the number of voters supporting his re-election rather than the number of Syrians killed.

Assad and his regime “understand nothing but the language of force. The use of force is imperative now, not only to bring them down but also to spare Syrian blood. Anything else is a waste of time, if not impotence and collusion with the criminal in Damascus.”

In Charbel’s opinion:

A triumvirate of three key players – Kofi Annan, the Syrian regime and the Syrian opposition – puts across a thorny landscape where “conditions for mediation are non-existent” and chances of killing fields and disaster scenes are vivid.

Paradoxically, each of the sides has strong and weak points at the same time.

Annan is strong because the UN mandated him. His weakness is that subsequent support for his mission was expressed “in UN statements for want of Security Council resolutions” for fear of being vetoed by Russia and China.

The Syrian regime is strong because foreign intervention was and remains off the table and because its killing machine remains as yet unflagging. “It is weak because it failed over the past year to stifle the opposition – not to speak of the harm to its status and to the image of its army and security services.”

The Syrian opposition is weak because “it failed to make major inroads into the regime’s military and diplomatic corps or to mobilize protests in Damascus” or overcome its own incertitude. It is strong because “restive townships resume protests soon after being stormed by the army and because it is still able to rally mass demonstrations, proving the ruling party has lost its way and its roots.”

In such setting, Annan asks of the Syrian authorities promises it cannot deliver on – i.e. cessation of armed violence, withdrawal of heavy weapons, unfettered movement throughout the country for journalists and respect of the right to peaceful demonstration. “How can the regime deliver on such promises today?”

The regime wants Annan to produce signed opposition undertakings to cease hostilities and disarm, which would be tantamount to sealed surrender documents. The opposition in turn wants guarantees from Annan that the political process would sink the regime – “something he cannot undertake.”

No wonder “tough and bitter maneuvers” are still in store for Syria.

The view from Moscow:

Annan’s plan is likely to stall Damascus’ successful crackdown on the opposition but hostilities will not end until Assad is ousted from power, Russian analysts told RIA Novosti.

Damascus had to accept Annan’s plan “for form’s sake” because rejecting a UN proposal would have painted it as a hardliner unfit for dialogue, Vladimir Bartenev, a global affairs analyst with Moscow State University, said.

“The situation is a mockery of the very idea of conflict settlement,” he added.

“The Free Syrian Army will use (a cessation of armed hostilities) to regroup after successful strikes by Assad’s forces in March,” said Bartenev.

It is just a formal nod by the global community to international norms of conflict settlement, said Alexei Malashenko, an analyst with Moscow Carnegie Center.

“The schizophrenic situation will go on while Assad is scrambling for a way to survive,” Malashenko explained.

Both Bartenev and Malashenko said despite Assad’s military success, his ouster is on the cards in the long term.

Assad emerged on top in the first phase of the civil war, taking control of the big cities and pushing his opponents to the mountains and countryside where they can resort to guerilla warfare, said Yevgeny Satanovsky, who heads the Moscow-based Middle East Studies Institute think-tank.

The Syrian president may yet stay in power if he followed the example of the Algerian junta that drowned its opponents in blood during the 1991-2002 civil war, Satanovsky said. But he also conceded that Assad’s opponents “will now be gradually uprooting him.”

Syria shoots down Annan’s April 10 ceasefire

Today's front-page of Syria's newsbreaker al-Watan

Syria won’t comply with the April 10 deadline set by Kofi Annan to halt fighting and withdraw its forces from population centers.

Russian experts join Syrian state-run media in saying the deadline is as dead as a doornail and waiting to be put six feet under.

Two leading Arab analysts concur, saying the whole Annan troubleshooting mission is with God already.

Damascus daily al-Watan quotes a “senior Syrian official” as saying the government “has requested written assurances from Annan that the rival side is committed to implement his plan and seeks a political solution to the crisis.”

Al-Watan adds:

“In a meeting with a small group of journalists, including one from al-Watan, the senior official stated, ‘Damascus did not relay to Annan its commitment to April 10 as a final deadline to withdraw all its forces and heavy weapons from Syrian cities. It only informed him it started pulling out heavy weapons from some cities – like Homs, Idlib and the Damascus suburb of Zabadani – and would be withdrawing part, but not all, of the remaining units by April 10.’

“The official insisted the set date (of April 10) poses a challenge for Annan to clinch a commitment from the other side. The official said, ‘Having signed on to his plan, Damascus wants from Annan written assurances that once the rival side follows suit and the Syrian government implements the first three in his six-point plan, the countries that vowed to arm and fund the opposition would desist and armed gangs would stop shooting at civilians.”

The Damascus daily goes on to quote President Bashar al-Assad as having personally told Annan: “If the rival side can’t be bound by any agreement, don’t press for a one-sided cessation of violence on our part.”

Al-Watan says the unnamed senior Syrian official describes “cessation of violence” as the “Gordian knot” in the Annan mission.

Significantly, al-Watan’s front-page report ranks top on Lebanese Hezbollah’s Al Manar news network with a headline saying: “Damascus won’t withdraw its troops without guarantees from the armed gangs, and April 10 is not a deadline.”

At the same time, Syria Online today features a hard-hitting comment shooting down Annan’s six-point plan, with a rebuttal of his “extensive second point.” The said 2^nd point asks the Syrian authorities to:

“commit to stop the fighting and achieve urgently an effective United Nations supervised cessation of armed violence in all its forms by all parties to protect civilians and stabilize the country.

“To this end, the Syrian government should immediately cease troop movements towards, and end the use of heavy weapons in, population centers, and begin pullback of military concentrations in and around population centers.

“As these actions are being taken on the ground, the Syrian government should work with the Envoy to bring about a sustained cessation of armed violence in all its forms by all parties with an effective United Nations supervision mechanism.

“Similar commitments would be sought by the Envoy from the opposition and all relevant elements to stop the fighting and work with him to bring about a sustained cessation of armed violence in all its forms by all parties with an effective United Nations supervision mechanism.”

Syria Online says the call on Damascus to immediately end violence and cease troop movements and the use of heavy weapons would “create a security vacuum” and give hordes of armed groups the opportunity to slip into Syria “across its five borders” with Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq, Jordan and Israel.

“How can we accept Annan’s so-called plan when no one, including Annan himself, can guarantee the armed gangs won’t wriggle again and exploit the ‘ceasefire’ to regroup and take delivery of the anti-armor missiles promised by Qatar and Saudi Arabia?” Syria Online wonders.

It says Annan’s plan will also open Syria’s doors to all manner of spies and spooks disguised as UN ceasefire monitors. “We have to be extremely cautious and not allow ourselves to be rushed by Annan and his entourage.”

Four Russian experts – all quoted today by Voice of Russia -- have surprisingly joined Damascus in lambasting the April 10 deadline.

According to Sergei Demidenko, of the Moscow-based Institute for Strategic Studies and Analysis: “One can hardly expect any settlement now because Bashar al-Assad may order the troops to pull out, but under no circumstances will the opposition lay down arms. The opposition (unleashed against the regime) by Saudi Arabia and Qatar will continue its attacks as before. The troops will have to again storm the cities in what will prove a vicious circle. The situation is clearly drifting into a civil war. The warring factions will certainly not stop hostilities by April 12…”

Yuri Krupnov, a political analyst and an expert on oriental studies, says, "The so-called Annan plan can yield no positive result” since it equates protesters and rebel groups with Syria’s lawful government. “This is absolutely wrong, of course.” The rebels have been increasingly resorting to al-Qaeda terrorist methods. “It follows that any government is free to fight terrorism, not only the Syrian government.”

Boris Dolgov, an expert with the Institute of Oriental Studies, believes "it is unfair” to ask government forces to cease fire first… Although Syrian authorities agreed to stop military actions simultaneously with the opposition, the position of leading Western countries, Persian Gulf monarchies and Turkey hampers ending the crisis in Syria."

Gumer Isayev, an analyst with the Center for Middle East Studies concurs. “The demand that the Syrian government should first stop using force sounds quite abstract. It means if the insurgents attacked the troops, the troops should let insurgents kill them."

In today’s Arab press, two analysts suggest the whole Annan mission is on its last legs because the Syrian regime simply doesn’t want it.

Rosanna Boumounsef, writing for the Beirut daily al-Nahar, says notwithstanding doubts about Assad’s credibility in diplomatic circles, “carrying through Annan’s plan would inevitably return Syria to the status quo ante bellum of peaceful protests that effectively sparked the revolution 14 months ago.”

Abdullah Iskandar, writing for the Saudi-owned pan-Arab daily al-Hayat, considers the April 10 ceasefire deadline set by Annan “totally beyond reach, if only because the regime does not feel obliged to make concessions it refused to make earlier, and because the security solution it chose at the outbreak of the protest movement remains its optimal option… In such a case, the situation is heading toward the worst-case scenario” of civil war.

UN chief slams Syria for intensifying crackdown

File photo from alarabiya.net

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon overnight condemned the Syrian government for intensifying its killings of civilians, including women and children, in the countdown to the April 10 ceasefire deadline.

His statement in full:

“The Secretary-General strongly condemns the latest escalation of violence. He deplores the assault by the Syrian authorities against innocent civilians, including women and children, despite the commitments by the Government of Syria to cease all use of heavy weapons in population centers. The 10 April timeline to fulfill the Government’s implementation of its commitments, as endorsed by the Security Council, is not an excuse for continued killing. Such actions violate the consensus position of the Security Council, as expressed in its Presidential Statement of 5 April, for a peaceful political settlement to the Syrian crisis to be ushered by full implementation of all aspects of the Joint Special Envoy’s six-point proposal.

"The Secretary-General is gravely concerned at the rapidly deteriorating humanitarian situation, which is now affecting more than one million people. The latest reports of growing numbers of refugee arrivals in neighboring countries are alarming. The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkey, H.E. Dr. Ahmet Davutoglu, informed the Secretary-General about the stream of refugees arriving in Turkey in their telephone conversation last night.

"The Syrian authorities remain fully accountable for grave violations of human rights and international humanitarian law. These must stop at once.

"The Secretary-General demands that the Government of Syria immediately and unconditionally cease all military actions against the Syrian people. He reiterates that it is the responsibility of the Syrian authorities to now deliver on what they have promised, and to implement, fully and unconditionally, all the commitments under the six-point plan of Joint Special Envoy Annan.”