November 7, 2013

Updates On Syria: Turkey May Stop Supporting Al-Qaeda, Kurds Confront Turkey-Syria Border Wall, Turkish Companies Sold CW To Jihadist Terrorists

"A Kurdish mayor on hunger strike in Turkey to protest the building of a barrier on the border with Syria accused Ankara on Tuesday of putting up a "wall of shame"." - Fulya Ozerkan, "Turkey mayor on hunger strike over Syria 'wall of shame'" AFP, November 5.

An excerpt from, "Syrian Kurdish leader: Turkey may end proxy war" by Amberin Zaman, Al Monitor, November 7:
Saleh Muslim, the co-chairman of Syria’s most powerful Kurdish party, the Democratic Union Party (PYD), has been holding talks in Geneva with Russian and Western officials in preparation for the planned Geneva II peace conference between the Syrian government and opposition groups. I caught Muslim in Paris on Nov. 7 to seek his views on what progress had been achieved and where his group stood on a solution to the two-year Syrian conflict.

The biggest news that Muslim delivered was that Turkey’s alleged proxy war against the PYD might be over. Fresh fighting erupted between the YPG and ISIS around the border town of Ras al-Ain in late October. Yet, according to Muslim, “There have been no jihadist fighters coming from Turkey as before. Turkey has ended its support for the jihadists. That is how things look now and we very much hope this state of affairs will continue.”

The absence of Turkish involvement helped the YPG capture Til Halef, a long-coveted strategic hilltop village lying 4 kilometers west of Ras al-Ain, on Nov. 4.

Turkey has reversed its policy “because of international pressure but also because these groups pose a grave threat to Turkey itself.”
An excerpt from, "Turkish police fire tear gas as Kurds protest against Syria wall" The Voice of Russia, November 7:
Turkish riot police fired tear gas on Thursday to disperse Kurdish protesters demonstrating against government plans to build a wall along part of the border with Syria.

Thousands of mostly young men, many waving red, yellow and green Kurdish flags, had earlier gathered to protest the plans in the Turkish town of Nusaybin, separated from the Syrian town of Qamishli by a strip of no-man's land and barbed wire fencing. 
An excerpt from, "Syria demands Turkey cooperation in court indictment related to terrorists' acquisition of WMDs" Syrian Arab News Agency, November 7:
The Syrian government has underlined the gravity of the terrorist groups' acquisition of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs).

The government referred, in a letter addressed to the counter-terrorism committees at the UN Security Council in New York, to the information unveiled by a court indictment in the Turkish city of Adana against a terrorist group comprising Syrian and Turkish members that sought to obtain chemical weapons.

The letter clarified that the abovementioned al-Qaeda-linked group sought to obtain materials used in manufacturing the toxic Sarin gas before having them transferred to Syria.

The government stressed, in its letter, the necessity that the Turkish authorities ask the Turkish companies that sold the toxic chemicals to the suspects about the names and locations of the persons or bodies that purchased or sought to purchase the chemical materials.

Reliable sources have indicated that the Turkish public prosecutor's indictment of the terrorist group was predicated on compelling evidence related to them having procured WMDs in Turkey ahead of transferring them into Syria.

The evidence is based on investigations and testimonies confirming that the suspects are responsible for the crimes attributed to them, not to mention the affiliation of some of them to al-Qaeda and establishing contacts with its leaders, with intent to procure and transfer chemicals into Syria for handing them to the terrorist groups there.