Syria’s conflict threatens the entire region

Thu, 25 Oct 2012 14:52:00 +0000

CAIRO, Egypt — In March 2011, a group of young students in the southern Syrian city of Daraa brazenly painted rare anti-government graffiti on the walls of their school. Few could have imagined that 19 months later, Syria would be in the throes of a violent, anti-regime uprising that every day looks more and more like a regional proxy war.

As the civilian casualties mount and refugees flood neighboring countries — and more state and non-state actors enter the fray — the Syrian conflict is widening in a way that threatens to engulf the entire region.

TURKEY

Turkey is perhaps the nation closest to directly clashing with Syria. Sharing a 560-mile border with Syria, the NATO-member nation now hosts more than 100,000 refugees and has actively assisted the Syrian opposition.

“I’ve been told by the Turks that they’ve played a role in terms of providing aid and money and even arms” to the Syrian rebels, said Michael Hanna, a fellow at the New York-based Century Foundation.

Turkey and Syria on the brink

Fri, 05 Oct 2012 22:40:00 +0000

A day after the Turkish parliament authorized military action in Syria, Prime Minister Tayyip Erdoğan issued strong words to its troubled neighbor.

“We are not interested in war, but we're not far from it either," Erdoğan said in a speech in Istanbul on Friday.

According to Turkish reports, the country is attempting to establish a buffer zone around the border, calling on the Syrian military to stay 10 kilometers away from the Turkish side.

While there have a been a number of cross-border incursions since the civil war in Syria broke out, the two countries appear the closest yet to a full confrontation. Syria’s conflict has perhaps weighed the heaviest on Turkey, which has taken in hundreds of thousands of refugees and is dealing with an increasingly vocal — and violent — Kurdish independence movement along its borders.

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Syria’s conflict threatens the entire region

Turkey and Syria on the brink