To Each His Responsibility!

Suraya Helou

With every new development on the ground, Turkey just plunges deeper into the Syrian crisis and internal confusion. The ottoman dreams of Prime Minister Erdogan and his party of becoming the leader of the Arab-Islamic world after taking grip over Syria are just going up in smoke.

Today, Turkey-much boasting of its good relations with its surrounding during the last decade-has major divergences with both Iran and Iraq and is at the brink of war with Syria, a war which it is seemingly unable to stage.
Since the beginning of the Syrian crisis, the state of Erdogan and the powerful foreign minister Davutoglu has shown tremendous laxity and a lack of knowledge of the regime which has wide opened Syria's doors to Turkey. Turkey has hence rushed to patronize the Syrian opposition and to bet on the speedy collapse of Assad's regime.
Indeed, it is the Turkish intelligence services that made of themselves well versed about Syria and thus heaped upon the West loads of information about the fragility of the regime and the alleged weakness of President Bashar Assad and the supposed role of his brother Maher, little known by western media until then. Turkish officials introduced themselves as the custodians of the opposition, and threatened the Syrian regime as if they were the real decision-makers in Syria. It is also Turkey which has overseen the birth of the Syrian National Council and the Free Syrian Army. Furthermore, it is Turkey which controls the passage of supplies and oil to the north Syrian region of Azaz. One shall then think about arms! Had it not been for Turkey, Azaz-based opposionists could not have stayed for hours, since even medical care supplies come from Turkey.

That is to say that since the beginning of the Syrian crisis, Turkey has been meddling in Syria's domestic affairs, starting with "advising" President Assad before venturing into concrete initiatives in line with the political and armed opposition to topple the regime. And still, when a mortar falls in a Turkish land coming from Syria, Turkish officials rush to deprecate "the Syrian aggression."
What to say then about the direct and indirect interventions of Turkey in the Syrian crisis? Aren't they an aggression against the regime and Syrians in general? For the time being, nothing has proved that the mortar had sourced from Syrian troops deliberately.
Even so, why to condemn such a natural reaction at a time when Turkey is unremittingly aggressing Syria and violating the integrity of the Syrian territory under the pretense of pursuing Turkish independists and helping the opposition seeking democracy? This ambiguous attitude can no more dupe anyone and Turkey's vehement protests against what Turkish officials term as "Syrian acts of war" can no more hide the truth. Turkey is definitely the aggressor while Syria is the victim.
 Moreover, Syria-sourced mortars are not a mistake but a reaction to a constant aggression. Today, if Turkey and Syria, once ago allies, are at the edge of war, it is certainly because of the Turkish attitude towards Syria, an attitude that has turned borders into a support base against Assad's regime. All the threats of the world, as well as the international tough statements against the Syrian regime, shall change nothing. In fact, to each his responsibility!

Source: moqawama.org, translated from French