Turkish jets scrambled to border with Syria
A military statement yesterday said F-16 jets were scrambled, and sent to the border after the helicopters flew in the area on at least three occasions.
The military did not report that any direct confrontation had taken place.
The jets were scrambled days after Turkey said it would treat any Syrian ilitary unit approaching its border as a direct threat in response to the downing of a Turkish reconnaissance plane by Syrian forces on Jun 22.
Turkey has also reinforced its border with anti-aircraft guns and other weapons.
The military said the helicopters flew as close as 6.5km to the Turkish border.
Meanwhile, Syrian opposition groups have rejected a UN-brokered plan for peaceful political transition in the country. Senior figures called the proposals “ambiguous” and a “waste of time”, and vowed not to negotiate with president Bashar Assad or members of his “murderous” regime.
An international conference in Geneva on Saturday accepted UN special envoy Kofi Annan’s plan for the creation of a transitional government, but at Russia’s insistence the compromise agreement left the door open to Syria’s president being part of the interim administration.
The US backed away from insisting that the plan should explicitly call for Assad to have no role in a new Syrian government, hoping the concession would encourage Russia to put greater pressure on its ally to end the crackdown which the opposition says has claimed more than 14,000 lives.
Syrian opposition figures rejected any notion of sharing in a transition with Assad.
Veteran Syrian opposition figure Haitham Maleh asked: “Every day I ask myself, ’Do they not see how the Syrian people are being slaughtered?’ It is a catastrophe, the country has been destroyed and they want us then to sit with the killer?”
Maleh described the agreement reached in Geneva as a waste of time and of “no value on the ground”.
“The Syrian people are the ones who will decide the battle on the ground, not those sitting in Geneva or New York or anywhere else,” he said.
Bassma Kodmani, a Paris-based spokesperson for Syria’s main opposition group, the Syrian National Council, said the agreement is “ambiguous” and lacks a mechanism or timetable for implementation.
Official Syrian media slammed the outcome, in rare agreement with the main opposition SNC.
The meeting “failed,” trumpeted the ruling party’s Al-Baath newspaper.
“The agreement of the task force on Syria in Geneva on Saturday resembles an enlarged meeting of the UN Security Council where the positions of participants remained the same,” it said.
In weekend violence, more than 160 people were killed across Syria, including 120 on Saturday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
