TURKEY: Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan says Parliamentary authorization of deployment of Turkish troops is intended solely as deterrent

Record ID: 217588

  • Title: TURKEY: Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan says Parliamentary authorization of deployment of Turkish troops is intended solely as deterrent
  • Date: 5th October 2012
  • Summary: SLATE INFORMATION
  • Embargoed: 20th October 2012 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Turkey
  • Country: Turkey
  • Topics: Conflict,International Relations,Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA3826NF4EMYRSUGEJVLEUYPHFO
  • Story Text: Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said on Thursday (October 4) that Turkey would never want to start a war, and parliament had authorised foreign deployment of troops as a deterrent after the fatal Syrian shelling of southeast Turkey.
    "Turkey wants peace and only peace in the region, as well as safety. That is our sole concern. We don't want war and we never would. The consequence of the wars in the region, in Iraq and Afghanistan, is obvious. We are also aware of the price Syria has paid in 1.5 year," Erdogan told reporters at a news conference in Ankara.
    "Turkey is capable of protecting its citizens and its border. Nobody should try to test our determination on this subject. For example, today, after all these incidents, a mortar bomb hit Altinozu district in Hatay province," he added.
    Turkey stepped up retaliatory artillery strikes on a Syrian border town, killing several Syrian soldiers, while its parliament approved further military action in the event of another spillover of the Syrian conflict.
    Seeking to unwind the most serious cross-border escalation in its 18-month-old crackdown on dissent, Damascus apologised through the United Nations for shelling which killed five civilians in southeast Turkey on Wednesday and said it would not happen again, Turkey's Deputy Prime Minister Besir Atalay said.
    Syria's staunch ally Russia said it had received assurances from Damascus that the mortar strike had been a tragic accident.
    But Turkey's government said "aggressive action" against its territory by Syria's military had become a serious threat to its national security and parliament approved the deployment of Turkish troops beyond its borders if needed.
    Erdogan said the shelling was the eighth attack of its kind from Syria, but that the previous incidents had only caused material damage and Damascus had ignored Ankara's warnings on the issue.
    "On the one hand, they (Syria) say it was an accident. On the other hand, the same incident repeats itself today. What kind of an accident is this? It happens once, twice, but how can it happen for the third time, fourth, fifth, sixth even for the seventh and eighth time? Therefore we call on all our friends to be sensitive on this issue," Erdogan said.
    "The parliamentary authorization of foreign deployment of Turkish troops is intended solely as deterrent. As you are aware, one of the most important instruments to prevent clashes is deterrence," he emphasized.
    Some 30,000 people have been killed across Syria, activists say, in a conflict with growing sectarian overtones which threatens to draw in regional Sunni Muslim and Shi'ite powers.
    Turkey is sheltering more than 90,000 refugees from Syria and fears a mass influx similar to the flight of half a million Iraqi Kurds into Turkey after the 1991 Gulf War.
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