Breaking news
Turkey's parliament has given green light for ground military intervention in Iraq and Syria 0310141.
| 2014
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Defence & Security News - Turkey |
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| Friday, October 3, 2014 07:58 AM | |||
| Turkey's parliament has given green light for ground military intervention in Iraq and Syria. | |||
Turkey’s
parliament on Thursday, October 2, 2014, has given the green light for
ground military intervention in Iraq and Syria and permitting foreign
troops to launch attacks from Turkish territory. Turkish cabinet met to
discuss all available options regarding the upcoming motion over the deployment
of Turkish troops to Syria and Iraq. |
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 Turkish armed forces have deployed armoured and main battle tanks along the Turkey-Syria border. |
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Parliament
voted 298-98 in favour of the motion which sets the legal framework for
any Turkish military involvement in Iraq or Syria, and for the potential
use of Turkish bases by foreign troops. Turkey shares a porous 900 km border with Syria, and has seen the conflict frequently spill across its frontier and has responded in kind when mortars and shells fired from Syria have hit its soil, in some cases killing Turkish civilians. Parliament had previously approved operations into Iraq and Syria to attack Kurdish separatists or to thwart threats from the Syrian regime. Thursday’s motion would expand those powers to address threats from ISIL militants who control a large cross-border swath of Iraq and Syria, in some parts right up to the Turkish border. Ismet Yilmaz, Turkish defence minister, said that Turkey could "not close its eyes" to the atrocities committed by ISIL, including beheadings and massacres. The Turkish Army does not appear to be preparing for an imminent incursion. It has increased its strength along the 900 km border with Syria in recent days, dispatching busloads of troops and columns of armored vehicles to take up positions near the besieged Syrian border town of Kobani. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has repeatedly said that his government is unlikely to send the army across the border unless an internationally supported no-fly zone is imposed first, to keep the Syrian Air Force from attacking Turkish troops. |
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