NEW YORK – Syria submitted a letter of complaint last week to the UN
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon alleging that Turkey is enabling “Al-Qaida, as
well as the Nusra Front and other terrorist organizations, to assemble, take
refuge, receive funding and arms, engage in smuggling, and enter Syrian
territory.”
The Syrian delegation, representing the regime of President
Bashar Assad, claims those same organizations are responsible for the killing of
civilians and the destruction of public and private property in Syrian lands.
Citing international law, the delegations claims that Turkey’s actions are “tantamount
to an act of aggression,” a violation of the UN charter and of Syria’s right to
self-determination.
“I hate to side with the Syrian government, but in
this case the accusation is correct,” said Michael Rubin, a former Pentagon
official now with the American Enterprise Institute in Washington.
“By
any objective measure, Turkey has become a state-sponsor of terrorism for its
support not only of Hamas, but also of al-Qaida affiliates and the Nusra Front,”
he said.
The letter is an escalation in an increasingly tense
relationship between the two countries. In the past week alone, Turkish Prime
Minister Tayyip Erdogan has called Assad a “mute devil” for his willingness to
attack his own people, and the Turkish government has encouraged efforts to
refer Syria to the International Criminal Court for committing crimes against
humanity.
“The regime has lost its legitimacy,” Turkish Foreign Minister
Ahmet Davutoglu said in a speech to the UN Human Rights Council in
Geneva.
“It is no longer governing. It is surviving by oppression, terror
and massacres.”
But whether or not to label the Nusra Front a terrorist
organization, as the United States and NATO have done, has become a political
debate in Turkey that has revealed a subtle delineation between jihadist and
terrorist.
Just a week ago at a Turkey-EU Joint Parliamentary Commission,
Davutoglu said, in reaction to questions on the Nusra Front’s classification,
that “for [Turkey], jihad is a sacred notion. Let us not taint this notion by
using it like neo-cons and pro-Israelis in America.”
An estimated 300,000
Syrian refugees have flooded Turkey, a NATO ally committed in public statements
to the war on terrorism.
Protests have erupted in recent days in Turkey’s
southern provinces over the government’s involvement in the Syrian conflict, and
against the deployment of US Patriot missile batteries, which became operational
just weeks ago.
Iran’s government-sponsored television network, Press TV,
reported claims today that Turkish nationals were taking drugs and crossing over
the border to fight Assad’s forces, while maintaining a “constant arms flow” to
rebel groups.
“It comes down to ideology,” says Rubin. “Turkey would
rather support al-Qaida affiliates than have secular Kurds like the PYD
[Syrian-Kurdish Democratic Union Party] consolidate control along its border.”