Damascus
has apologized through U.N. mediation for shelling a Turkish village yesterday, Turkey's Deputy Prime Minister Besir Atalay said on Thursday, stressing that the incident will not be repeated.
This as a mortar bomb from Syria landed in Turkey on Wednesday, killing at least five people. Turkey responded later the same day by striking targets in Syria. Turkey asked the U.N. Security Council to take the "necessary action" to stop Syrian aggression and ensure Turkish territorial integrity is respected.
Turkey's parliament gave authorization
on Thursday for military operations outside Turkish borders if the government
deemed them necessary, a day after artillery shelling from Syria killed five
civilians in a Turkish town.
The government had sought parliamentary
approval to send soldiers to foreign countries in a memorandum which said that
"aggressive action" by Syria's armed forces against Turkish territory
posed a serious threat to national security.
In this
regard, Turkey's Deputy Prime
Minister Besir Atalay said that the assembly’s authorization for military
operations outside Turkish borders was not a "war memorandum". Atalay said that Turkey's priority is to act in coordination with
international institutions in response to artillery shelling from Syria which
killed five civilians in its southeast.
Earlier in the day, Ibrahim Kalin, a senior
adviser to Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, said on his Twitter account that Turkey
has no interest in a war with Syria. “But Turkey is capable of protecting its
borders and will retaliate when necessary.”
"Political, diplomatic initiatives will
continue," he said.
In the most serious cross-border escalation of the 18-month uprising in Syria, Turkey hit back after what it called "the last straw" when a mortar hit a residential neighborhood of the southern border town of Akcakale on Wednesday.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said several Syrian soldiers were killed in the Turkish bombardment of a military post near the Syrian town of Tel Abyad, a few miles across the frontier from Akcakale. It did not say how many soldiers died.
NATO said it stood by member-nation Turkey and urged Syria to put an end to "flagrant violations of international law." The U.S.-led Western military alliance held an urgent late night meeting in Brussels to discuss the matter and in New York, Turkey asked the U.N. Security Council to take the "necessary action" to stop Syrian aggression.
In a letter to the president of the 15-nation Security Council, Turkish U.N. Ambassador Ertugrul Apakan called the firing of the mortar bomb "a breach of international peace and security."
U.N. diplomats said Security Council members hoped it would issue a non-binding statement on Thursday that would condemn the mortar attack "in the strongest terms" and demand an end to violations of Turkey's territorial sovereignty.
Members had hoped to issue the statement on Wednesday, but Russia - a staunch ally of Syria's, which along with China has vetoed three U.N. resolutions condemning President Bashar al-Assad's government - asked for a delay, diplomats said.
International Positions:
Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said on Thursday that Turkey would never want to start a war and parliament had authorized foreign deployment of troops as a deterrent after the fatal Syrian shelling of southeast Turkey.
"We could never be interested in something like starting a war," Erdogan told reporters at a news conference.
"The Turkish Republic is a state capable of defending its citizens and borders. Nobody should try and test our determination on this subject," he added.
Earlier on Thursday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said it was important
for Syria to acknowledge that the bombing on the Turkish border was accidental.
From Budapest-British Foreign Secretary William Hague said that the Turkish
response to Syria’s action is understandable, but escalation should be avoided. The British official described Syria's actions as outrages urging that a repetition of such falters should be avoided.He added, "the incident underlines urgency for
peaceful solution to conflict in Syria, and the need for transitional a government".
European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton on Thursday condemned a mortar strike from Syria that killed five civilians in Turkey, and called for restraint from all sides.
"I strongly condemn yesterday's shelling by Syrian forces of the Turkish border town," she said in a statement. "I once again urge the Syrian authorities to put an immediate end to the violence and fully respect the territorial integrity and sovereignty of all neighboring countries."
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said Syria's border
attack poses a "serious threat to peace", such acts must be ended without
delay, he stressed.
France also called on UN Security
Council to send swift, firm message to Syria condemning the attack.
In turn, the
Islamic Republic of Iran called on both Turkey and Syria to exercise
self-restraint, launch a close study over the case and pay heed to the goals of
the enemies.
As for the Arab
League’s Secretary General Nabil Elaraby, he considered that the Syrian shelling
of the Turkish village is “a threat to security and peace in the region”.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was "alarmed by escalating tensions" between Syria and Turkey and warned that the risk of the 18-month-long Syrian conflict embroiling the entire region was growing, his spokesman said on Thursday.
Later in the evening, the U.S. State Department said it regarded Turkey's response to Syrian mortar fire on Wednesday as appropriate, proportionate and designed to deter any future violations of its sovereignty by Syria.
The department also believes Turkey, which has carried out retaliatory artillery strikes on a Syrian border town, has responded to Wednesday's mortar fire and that its parliament's actions were aimed at any future violations of its sovereignty, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters.
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REUTERS/AP/LBCI