Thousands flee Syria in major refugee exodus

Thousands flee Syria in major refugee exodus

ca.reuters.com

ANKARA/DOHA (Reuters) - Thousands of Syrians fled their country on Friday in one of the biggest refugee exoduses of the 20 month war after rebels seized a border town.

Syria's fractious opposition was meeting in Qatar, under increasing pressure from the United States and Qatar to unite and form a credible body capable of ruling the country effectively if President Bashar al-Assad falls.

The United Nations said 11,000 refugees had fled in 24 hours, most to Turkey. The exodus is testing the patience of Ankara, the most militarily capable of Syria's neighbors and a strong opponent of Assa

(visit the link for the full news article)

Yet another situation to add to the pile that illustrates how the environment in Syria is deteriorating. I fear that with all the confusion, a “mass exodus” represents, turmoil and violence will be sure to follow.

As I posted earlier, Turkey just recently this morning Bombed a PKK militant group in one of their northern provinces, so you know the Military is on high alert. Here is that thread if interest: www.abovetopsecret.com...

With all the tension on the Syria – Turkey border I hope things do not continue to spread into Turkey resulting in further conflict.

It also appears that Turkey is getting tired of the violence happening in their backyard.

Turkey's Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan hit out at world powers on the U.N. Security Council over their inaction.
"It is very strange. There are currently atrocities being committed in Syria and these atrocities are being directed by a state leader," he said. "How far will this go? When will the permanent members of the Security Council take responsibility?"

Further to this, the article describes addition desertions

The Turkish state-run Anatolian news agency reported that 26 Syrian military officers had also arrived in Turkey with their families overnight in what it called the biggest mass desertion of senior soldiers from Assad's forces in months.
The latest flight of refugees raised the total recorded by the United Nations to 408,000. The International Committee of the Red Cross said on Thursday it could not keep up with the increasingly dire needs of civilians.

In response Hilary Clinton has stepped up on controlling/formalizing things with the Syrian Opposition.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last week called for overhauling the opposition, saying more representation was needed for those "on the frontlines and dying". The SNC is due on Friday to complete elections to its executive council and choose a new leader, before continuing talks with other groups.

Then we also have the Kurds contributing to increased tensions..

In the last three months, the mainly Sunni Muslim Arab rebels have captured outposts on the Turkish border, moving towards the northeastern heartland of Syria's one million Kurds, many of whom have tried to stay clear of violence.
The Kurdish Council, a coalition of Kurdish parties opposed to Assad, called on rebels to pull their fighters out of Ras al-Ain, saying the clashes and fear of Syrian bombardment had prompted most of its

All this I see as adding to the balance beam and I believe we will reach a tipping point really soon if this situation continues to degenerate into chaos.


ca.reuters.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

reply to post by MDDoxs


Thanks for the updates! This is quickly becoming a huge humanitarian disaster and we can thank China and Russia because the vetoed any U.N. interaction.

It's ironic because not long ago Turkey and Syria were basically friends if not true allies.

Once again the world powers place their political agendas before basic human rights and who suffers and dies? The innocents.

reply to post by cavalryscout


Very good points and yes the relationship between Syria and Turkey has deteriorated over time.

Here are some factors:

Hatay annexation
In 1938 Republic of Hatay became independent from the French mandate of Syria as the Republic of Hatay and following a referendum, 8 months later in 1939, it decided to join Turkey. This self-annexation was never recognized by Syria, which continues to show the Hatay Province of Turkey as part of Syria's territory on maps.[2]
At present Syrians hold the view that this land is historically Syrian and was illegally ceded in the late 1930s to Turkey by France – the mandatory occupying power of Syria (between 1920 and 1946). The Turks remember Syria as a former Ottoman vilayet. In 1938, the Turkish Army went into the former Syrian Mediterranean province with French approval and expelled most of its Alawite Arab and Armenian inhabitants.[3] Before this, Alawi Arabs and Armenians were the majority of the provincial population.[3] For the referendum, Turkey crossed tens of thousands of Turks into Alexandretta to vote.[

Water politics
Water disputes have been a major source of conflict as Turkey has constructed several dams on the Euphrates and Tigris rivers as part of the Southeastern Anatolia Project to develop the region.[2]

Support of terrorism
Turkey has condemned Syria for supporting the PKK, which is listed as a terrorist organization internationally by a number of states and organizations, including the USA, NATO and the EU and has claimed that Syria employed Alois Brunner to train Kurdish militants for attacks against Turkey.[6]
The two countries came to the brink of war when Turkey threatened military action if Syria continued to shelter Abdullah Öcalan in Damascus, his long-time safe haven. Relations have improved since October 1998, when Öcalan was expelled by Damascus and Syria pledged to stop harbouring the PKK terrorists and the 1999 signing of the Adana agreement, following his subsequent capture in Kenya, envisaged security cooperation between the two countries.[7]

As I mentioned in the initial post, Turkey had just completed an military operation in which 13 supposed Kurdish PKK militants were killed.
It just seems like the water continues to build up behind the dam and it could very well be at its bursting point. I hope not ofcourse, but this can only go on so long until the pressure is “relieved”.

Please look for the story on the other side.
Do you really believe we are 'spreading freedom and democracy'? Do you really believe after 'we' starved over 500,000 children in Iraq, but felt it was 'worth it', that 'WE' have any legitimacy to claim we are 'humanitarians'? Do you really believe 'we' did what was done in Libya 'for the people'?
We know our govt and media lies to us, why would you believe them now? Russia and China are vetoing the right of other countries to decide what is best for another; they are supporting Syria's right not to be invaded under 'humanitarian' pretext.
Please remember - Deny Ignorance.
Here is a documentary, Manufacturing Dissent, about the media lies in regard to Syria.
lizzie-phelan.blogspot.ca...

"Manufacturing Dissent is a documentary about the psychological-warfare by the media and political establishment of the west and their allies aimed at facilitating the US, European and Israeli agenda of getting rid of the current Syrian government. It demonstrates how the media has directly contributed to the bloodshed in Syria.

The documentary de-constructs the main allegations those actors have presented, namely that the Syrian government was systematically repressing peaceful protests and that it has lost legitimacy. It shows how such claims are supported by scant evidence and are therefore little more than propaganda to serve the foreign policy interests of their countries.

Manufacturing Dissent includes evidence of fake reports broadcasted/published by the likes of CNN, BBC, Al Jazeera and others and interviews with a cross section of the Syrian population including an actor, a craftsman, a journalist, a resident from Homs and an activist who have all been affected by the crisis."

She, Lizzie Phelan, has been closely following Syria and Libya and what is happening there. She is not the only one. Please look into it before you rush to support another of our 'humanitarian' invasions.

reply to post by curiouscanadian777


Though I understand and somewhat support the argument you have presented. It goes a bit beyond the context of the OP, as the central focus is the degeneration of the situation on the Turkey-Syria border.

What you have mentioned touches on the far larger issue.

With my recent threads I have hoped to illustrate that the straws are piling up on the camels back and that we are not far away from the proverbial "final straw". From this we could see unprecedented violence in the area. Could...

Edit to add: Apologies for going off topic. It is just very frustrating for me...

Well, Turkey is a member of NATO, so why does anyone think they would have support for any agenda but NATO's?

From what I understand, the Turkish people are not very happy with their leadership who wants to involve them in a war that is not in their interests either.

reply to post by curiouscanadian777

Edit to add: Apologies for going off topic. It is just very frustrating for me...

Nothing to worry about I know how you feel, hard to boil such a large issue down into individual facets. I just like breaking it down because we can further scrutinize and evaluate how they influence the bigger picture.

There is a lot of under the table stuff going on, dare i say cloak a dagger. We can draw inferences from what we observe and you could very well be entirely correct.

I just wanted to create more awareness how these issues, the deaths, the innocents and the overall tragedy this is becoming.

An Islamist government is looking inevitable. It is the Christians and moderate Muslims who are fleeing.

The plight of Syria's Christians: 'We left Homs because they were trying to kill us'

No doubt the new Islamist government will be well funded by the Obama administration. Afterall Obama gave 1 billion in aid to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.