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Pedro Gonçalves

Exclusive - Secret Turkish nerve centre leads aid to Syria rebels | Reuters - 0 views

uk.reuters.com/...s-centre-idUKBRE86Q0J620120727

Syria Turkey Qatar

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 28 Jul 12 - No Cached
  • Turkey has set up a secret base with allies Saudi Arabia and Qatar to direct vital military and communications aid to Syria's rebels from a city near the border
  • "It's the Turks who are militarily controlling it. Turkey is the main co-ordinator/facilitator. Think of a triangle, with Turkey at the top and Saudi Arabia and Qatar at the bottom,"
  • "The Americans are very hands-off on this. U.S. intel(ligence) are working through middlemen. Middlemen are controlling access to weapons and routes."
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  • The centre in Adana, a city in southern Turkey about 100 km (60 miles) from the Syrian border, was set up after Saudi Deputy Foreign Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Abdullah al-Saud visited Turkey and requested it, a source in the Gulf said
  • Adana is home to Incirlik, a large Turkish/U.S. air force base which Washington has used in the past for reconnaissance and military logistics operations. It was not clear from the sources whether the anti-Syrian "nerve centre" was located inside Incirlik base or in the city of Adana.
  • 20 former Syrian generals are now based in Turkey, from where they are helping shape the rebel forces. Israel believes up to 20,000 Syrian troops may now have defected to the opposition.
  • "All weaponry is Russian. The obvious reason is that these guys (the Syrian rebels) are trained to use Russian weapons, also because the Americans don't want their hands on it. All weapons are from the black market. The other way they get weapons is to steal them from the Syrian army. They raid weapons stores."
  • The presence of the secret Middle East-run "nerve centre" may explain how the Syrian rebels, a rag-tag assortment of ill-armed and poorly organised groups, have pulled off major strikes such as the devastating bomb attack on July 18 which killed at least four key Assad aides including the defence minister.
  • Qatar, the tiny gas-rich Gulf state which played a leading part in supplying weapons to Libyan rebels, has a key role in directing operations at the Adana base, the sources said. Qatari military intelligence and state security officials are involved.
  • "The Qataris mobilized their special forces team two weeks ago. Their remit is to train and help logistically, not to fight," said a Doha-based source with ties to the FSA.Qatar's military intelligence directorate, Foreign Ministry and State Security Bureau are involved, said the source.
Argos Media

Obama's Visit to Ankara: Turkey Trip Offers Pitfalls and Opportunities - SPIEGEL ONLINE... - 0 views

www.spiegel.de/...0,1518,617714,00.html

US Turkey Armenia Armenian Genocide EU NATO Incirlik Anders Fogh Rasmussen

shared by Argos Media on 07 Apr 09 - Cached
  • It was only Barack Obama's telephone diplomacy -- which came in the form of a call to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan -- that solved the problem. In the end, the two agreed that Turkey would not blackball Fogh Rasmussen in return for reportedly gaining an important seat in the alliance and a pledge to start procedures to shut down the Danish television station Roj TV, which Turkey accuses of having ties to the Kurdish militant group PKK.
  • Turkey is a very important strategic partner for the US, a fact which already led presidents Clinton and Bush to give vocal support to Ankara's ambitions to join the EU.
  • Another fact is that Turkey's army -- which alone has 1,200 soldiers stationed in Afghanistan -- is the second largest among those of NATO's member states.
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  • And, then, there is the Incirlik Air Base in southern Turkey, which serves as logistics hub for missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. There's also the fact that Turkey's proximity to the central-Asian countries that are rich in raw materials makes it an important transit hub in the energy supply.
  • Then, of course, there's the issue of Iran. Ankara nurtures strong ties with the country, meaning that Turkey could play a role in facilitating new diplomatic overtures between Washington and Tehran.
  • Turkey's government has already helped to organize talks between high-level officials in Pakistan and Afghanistan and to negotiate a cease-fire in the Gaza conflict.
  • According to poll figures, more than half of all Turks think Obama is the most trustworthy foreign statesman
  • America's reputation has suffered major damage in Turkey, particularly as a result of its disastrous invasion of Iraq. When Obama was elected president, polls indicated that only 9 percent of Turkey's population approved of Washington's policies. America's efforts to aid Turkey's ambition to become part of the EU have impressed few Turks, particularly since progress has been so sluggish.
  • "Obama should treat Turkey as more than a Muslim country," says Soner Cagaptay, an expert on Turkey at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. As he sees it, it was a good idea for Obama to visit Turkey right after attending meetings with NATO and EU representatives as a way of underscoring the country's close ties with the West.
  • last year, Swiss mediators helped Turkish and Armenian diplomats hammer out a comprehensive agreement that would envision a historic coming to terms with the events of 1915 -- as well as to clear the path for the resumption of diplomatic relations between Turkey and Armenia.
Pedro Gonçalves

Obama inks 'secret order' to aid Syria rebels - Middle East - Al Jazeera English - 0 views

www.aljazeera.com/...20128264510724249.html

Syria US

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 02 Aug 12 - No Cached
  • US President Barack Obama has signed a secret order authorising US support for rebels seeking to depose Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his government, Reuters news agency said quoting sources familiar with the matter.
  • The White House has apparently stopped short of giving the rebels lethal weapons, even as some US allies have been doing just that.
  • A US government source acknowledged that under provisions of the presidential finding, the US was collaborating with a secret command centre operated by Turkey and its allies.
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  • Last week, Reuters reported that, along with Saudi Arabia and Qatar, Turkey had established a secret base near the Syrian border to help direct vital military and communications support to Assad's opponents.
  • This "nerve centre" is in Adana, a city in southern Turkey about 100km from the Syrian border, which is also home to Incirlik, a US airbase where US military and intelligence agencies maintain a substantial presence.
  • European government sources said wealthy families in Saudi Arabia and Qatar were providing significant financing to the rebels. Senior officials of the Saudi and Qatari governments have publicly called for Assad's departure.
  • On Tuesday, reports emerged that the Free Syrian Army had obtained nearly two dozen surface-to-air missiles, weapons that could be used against Assad's helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft.
  • NBC network said the shoulder-fired missiles, also known as MANPADs, had been delivered to the rebels via Turkey. On Wednesday, however, Bassam al-Dada, a political adviser to the Free Syrian Army, denied the NBC report, telling the Arabic-language TV network Al-Arabiya that the group had "not obtained any such weapons at all".
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