View Photo Gallery — A Civil Defence member extinguishes a fire at the site of an explosion outside Syria's highest court in central Damascus on June 28, 2012. The explosion tore through a car park outside the court on Thursday, torching at least 20 cars. For more photos, see our gallery, ‘Conflict in Syria.’
By Liz Sly and Karen DeYoung, Published: June 28 | Updated: Friday, June 29, 8:36 AM
The Washington Post
BEIRUT — Turkey reinforced its border with Syria with additional troops and antiaircraft weapons Thursday, amid heightened regional tensions ahead of a conference of world powers in Geneva this weekend.
A bomb explosion in the heart of Damascus further underscored the sense of urgency building around the gathering, convened by U.N. special envoy Kofi Annan in an effort to salvage faltering international diplomacy in Syria.
While it has raised hopes of a breakthrough, Annan’s plan has also been met with skepticism based on months of failure, during which Syrian violence has steadily escalated. In addition to existing calls for a cease-fire, the proposal calls for U.N.-led negotiations between elements of the current government and the opposition, leading to an interim unity government, a new constitution and eventual elections.
The plan would leave intact Syrian government institutions, including the military, while excluding from negotiations those “whose continued presence and participation would undermine the credibility of the transition” and jeopardize future stability. That presumably means President Bashar al-Assad.
It also envisions a new U.N. Security Council resolution and the possibility of a U.N. peacekeeping force.
The United States and Russia have agreed that the proposal forms the basis for further discussions Saturday in Geneva, although neither they, nor Syria’s government or opposition, have publicly voiced approval of specific new elements. Foreign ministers of Britain, France and China will also attend the meeting, along with U.N. and Arab League officials who will gather with Syrian opposition leaders in a meeting Sunday.
Annan’s hope is that the plan will finesse a logjam in which the opposition has made Assad’s departure a precondition of negotiations, while Russia has refused to approve any initiative that guaranteed the ouster of him and his government.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who will meet with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in St. Petersburg on Friday, said any political transition must be approved by the Syrian people, who he said must also decide Assad’s fate.
The dispatch of Turkish reinforcements came five days after Syria shot down a Turkish air force F-4 jet and NATO said it would honor its commitments to defend alliance member Turkey if necessary.
A senior NATO official emphasized that, while Turkey has kept the alliance apprised of its actions, the new deployments “are measures they are taking themselves.”
The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity about the sensitive issue, said that Turkey, during a NATO meeting Monday in Brussels, had not asked for any specific alliance action. “What they wanted was to make sure that NATO is with them if it comes to defense of their territory. We have plans for the defense of Turkey. They exist; they have long existed,” the official said.
Following the downing of the jet, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had said Turkey had changed its rules of engagement along its 550-mile southern border with Syria and would treat any Syrian military approach as a threat.
After a five-hour meeting Thursday, Turkey’s National Security Council issued a sternly worded warning that it “will act with determination to use all its rights within the international law against this hostile act.” State television broadcast footage of a column of military vehicles towing antiaircraft guns and multiple-rocket launchers arriving at a military outpost in the border town of Guvecci. It was one of several military convoys that reporters saw converging on the border.
The Turkish-Syrian tensions have compounded the increasingly complex situation inside Syria, where the once-peaceful 15-month-old uprising against Assad has evolved into a full-blown armed rebellion engulfing large swaths of the country.
Thursday’s midday blast in central Damascus took the violence to the symbolic heart of the city. Syria’s state-run news agency said three people were injured in what it called a “terrorist blast” in the parking lot of the Justice Palace, just outside the walls of the historic Old City and across the street from the entrance to the ancient Hamidiyeh souk.
The bombing came after an assault on a privately owned television station in a town 14 miles south of Damascus in which three journalists and four security guards were killed, suggesting that rebels are now beginning to target civilian institutions associated with the regime. The rebel Free Syrian Army claimed, however, that the attack was staged by defecting soldiers, who clashed with security services guarding the TV station.
Colum Lynch, at the United Nations, contributed to this report.
More world news coverage:
- U.S. money remains in Iraq
- Germany pushes for E.U. federalism
- Israel-Egypt ties face new challenge
- Read more headlines from around the world
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8 Comments
klausdmk wrote: 3:53 AM UTC+1000
The Syrian rebel terrorist and al-Qaeda Islam terrorist attack the center of Damascus with bombs. Scores of people have died in recent months in a wave of explosions in Damascus, some of them suicide bombings reminiscent of al-Qaeda-linked attacks in Iraq, that have been claimed by a new and shadowy jihadist organization called the Al-Nusra Front. The revolutionary Syrian rebels are now beginning to target civilian institutions associated with the regime. The rebel Free Syrian Army claimed however that the attack was staged by defecting soldiers, who clashed with security services guarding the TV station. With Obama’s support another government overthrow is in motion by rebel terrorist violence and intimidation against the establishment.
reformthesystem responds: 7:21 AM UTC+1000If
that is correct, everybody in the Obama administration is guilty of aiding and conspiring in the random murder of civilians in Syria.
Statement responds: 7:43 AM UTC+1000
Give me a break this is Alawite/Shiite propaganda...this are civilians fighting 10s of years of Esad oppression...there maybe a few extremist in the mix but these rats squeez in every. The majority of rebels are of Syria Sunni majority made mostly of defected military and or civilians, family member of those Assad has killed in the past. Sunnis are the majority of Syria which has been run by the Shiite leaning minority Alawites. This is changing of course with this uprising. US, Turkey, the Gulf nations, Joran, Saudi do not want furhter shite proliferation
shewholives wrote: 3:05 AM UTC+1000
Must be Israel's fault. Right Hamas?
acaratzas wrote: 2:21 AM UTC+1000
[Let's try again; I posted a comment to this pice two hours ago only to find that it disappeared] US and western support for the terrorists fighting the legitimate Syrian government is easy to explain as to motives, the Turk and especially Saudi/Guld state lobbies are active and generous, but much harder to explain as to policy aims. What is the point of lining up with people who are sworn enemies of our way to life and destabilizing regimes, which may not share our political culture but do not threaten us? We brought on the collapse of the Libyan regime only to have created a far more unstable situation, not only within Libya (really, did the State Dept expect "democracy" to succeed in the place?), but also in the states to its south, where militant Islamic groups are rebelling and it the process killing and maiming many Christians, among others. Which brings us back to Syria; those fighting the Assad regime are supported by Turkey, Saudi Arabia (and al Qaeda) as well as the US and its allies; there are reports of mercenaries being brought in as well as British special foces. Many of these would be called terrorists by our policy makers (and probably were in other war theaters), here however they are deemed the preferred candidates for tyranny. Little is mentioned in the media about who the people fighting the Syrian regime are; in fact, with the esception of some decorative pieces (i.e. those who were showily secular in the past), the vast majority of the fighter/terrorists are Sunni Islamists. If there were a question, their deeds answer it: they killed about 90 people in Houla who were deemed heretics, i.e. Alawites or Sunnis who were not militant. A couple of months ago these same Islamists killed over 200 Christians in Homs and then circulated the photographs of their victims claiming they were killed by the regime -- the saddest part is that much of the western press eagerly reproduced these images with the false captions. Indeed the ethnic cleansing and murder of Christians in Syria is almost the inevitable result if the Islamists gain the upper hand. It is time for the American people to make their voices heard: do they, a majority of whom are Christians and Jews sharing common values, want to support yet another destruction of an ancient Christian community?
dsharon responds: 3:51 AM UTC+1000
Well this is the conundrum. Assad is a brutal dictator. The Opposition is seeking to overthrow a brutal dictatorship - but is not motivated by the goal of establishing a liberal democracy, but rather a different type of dictatorship. The problem is who do we despise more -- the brutal dictator we know or the yet unknown dictatorship to be created. So far, we have two sorry examples in Libya and Egypt that leave the rest of the world confused as to what is the best course of action. But unfortunately, you are right, the Christian minority in Syria are probably the people who are going to pay the price of the chaos in Syria.
kflynn10 responds: 6:11 AM UTC+1000
And with no press allowed in the country how do YOU know who killed those people? How do you know who the rebels are? In the same post you state that no body really knows who they are and that they are all terrorists.. You contradict yourself. From my perspective it seems likely that the majority of the people fighting with the rebels are those who protested 15 months ago and those whose friends/family were locked up and tortured thanks to those protests
MetroStep responds: 6:46 AM UTC+1000
Anyone who does a little research beyond the articles in newspapers like the Post can see the Islamist nature of the rebels. Homs was the stronghold of Muslim Brotherhood jihadist terrorism in the 70s and 80s and it is the base of the rebels today. This is a rematch of the earlier contest. The US military in Iraq were plagued by insurgents coming from same region in Syria that is now the hotbed of the Syrian rebellion. Put 2 and 2 together. The Syrian Council who are doing the media campaign for the rebels are all expatriates who have lived in the West for years and may in fact share some of our democratic ideals but they are not the ones who will be in charge if the rebellion in Syria succeeds. The Syrians will consider them outsiders just like the Iraqis did Achmed Challabi who told the Bush administration everything it wanted to hear to get us to invade Iraq. He was a charlatan.
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