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Turkey admits Reyhanli was attacked by al-Qaeda

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  • Turkey admits Reyhanli was attacked by al-Qaeda

    Al-Monitor
    April 5 2014

    Turkey admits Reyhanli was attacked by al-Qaeda

    Author: Tulin Daloglu
    Posted April 4, 2014


    On May 11, 2013, Reyhanli, a Turkish town on the border with Syria,
    was attacked with twin car bombs, leaving behind an official toll of
    52 deaths and 146 injuries.


    But the mystery of who attacked Reyhanli, marking the worst terrorist
    attack this country has ever seen, remained controversial. Here is
    why:

    On May 25, 2013, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused
    the Syrian regime of being behind this attack. Also, referring to a
    visit by a group of main opposition Republican People's Party deputies
    to a Damascus meeting with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Erdogan
    said in an accusatory tone, "We have documents in our hands that
    clearly prove that those who took the CHP members to Assad are those
    who were directly involved in the Reyhanli attack."

    The indictment about this attack also pinpointed that THKP/C Acilciler
    (Urgency Group, a splinter faction of the Turkish People's Liberation
    Party/Front which has had no known activity for the past two decades
    at least], which supposedly has direct connection to the Syrian
    intelligence service Al-Mukhabarat, carried out this attack. The
    Reyhanli indictment contends Mihrac Ural, the leader of the Acilciler,
    organized the attack with Syrian intelligence. They were initially
    planning to carry out this attack in the capital, Ankara, roughly 700
    kilometers [434 miles] from this border area. The trial is still
    pending.

    Erdogan also talked about the late May-early June Gezi Park protests
    as a "continuation of Reyhanli." The prime minister so far has not
    publicly blamed anyone other than the Syrian regime to be behind this
    attack.

    With the Armenian Bar Association's letter to US President Barack
    Obama on March 25, the Armenian community is directly accusing Turkey
    of being responsible for the radical Islamists' attack in the village
    of Kassab in Syria, where there is a significant Armenian population.
    On top of that, Armenians are preparing to mark the 99th anniversary
    of the Armenian genocide on April 24 and Turkey seems to be changing
    its official story about who is responsible for the Reyhanli attack.

    Speaking at the 992nd meeting of the Permanent Council of the
    Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) on March
    27, Turkey's Ambassador Tacan Ildem was the first Turkish official to
    state that the Reyhanli attack was carried out by al-Qaeda: "More
    recently a massive bomb attack in the Reyhanli town center, carried
    out by al-Qaeda elements operating out of Syria, caused 52 deaths and
    146 injuries," he said. Ildem was responding to the commentary made by
    the Armenian Ambassador Arman Kirakossian at the OSCE meeting.

    "The Armenian delegation expresses its grave concern over the last
    escalation of the situation in north-western Syria, around the ancient
    Armenian-populated town of Kassab. In the last few days, Kassab was
    attacked from the territory of Turkey by al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorist
    groups. The brutal cross-border attacks, which also targeted the
    civilian population, resulted in evacuation of the local Armenian
    population to safer areas," Kirakossian said. "The extremist groups
    occupied the town and desecrated Kassab's Armenian Apostolic and three
    Armenian Catholic churches. We call on Turkey to take immediate and
    effective measures to prevent use of its territory by the terrorist
    groups to conduct attacks on Kassab."

    Ildem responded by arguing that Turkey is also coming under al-Qaeda
    attacks. "I can certainly agree on the degree of concern expressed by
    my distinguished Armenian colleague. Nonetheless, to allege before the
    Permanent Council that Kassab is under attack from al-Qaeda elements
    operating out of Turkey is nonsense. As stated in a press release
    issued yesterday by my ministry, we reject it utterly. Turkey has been
    a target of al-Qaeda, not a base of operations for it," Ildem said.
    "Let us not forget for even a moment that one of the four major
    al-Qaeda attacks took place in Istanbul [in November 2003]."

    He continued, "Merely days ago, al-Qaeda operatives having infiltrated
    Turkey from Syria opened fire on security officials at a roadblock in
    the province of Nigde, close to Ankara. They killed one gendarme, one
    police officer and one civilian passerby. The culprits are now under
    arrest, awaiting trial. Their interrogation led to an operation in
    Istanbul where, again, gunfire was opened on law enforcement officers,
    wounding three."

    Ildem added, "Yet another truth on this matter is that Turkish
    authorities, in view of the gravity of the situation on the ground,
    have formally approached the relevant UN organizations to inform them
    of our preparedness to provide a shelter facility in the Mardin
    province, ready in case an urgent evacuation of the civilian
    population in Kassab takes place. In other words, diametrically
    opposed to what has just been claimed, Turkey has offered a helping
    hand to the population of Kassab, indiscriminate of their ethnic or
    religious origin, including the Syrian Armenians."

    In sum, Turkey needs to clarify its story about who attacked Reyhanli.
    The truth surely comes in time, but which one of these stories is
    Turkey's truth? Ildem could have easily made his argument without
    citing anything about the Reyhanli attack. Why did he make such a
    controversial statement, challenging not only the indictment of the
    Reyhanli attack but also the country's strong prime minister? These
    are questions that deserve answers, because the Turkish people have a
    right to know who killed 52 of them in this country's worst terror
    attack.

    Addressing the Turkish news media on April 4 for the first time after
    the AKP's triumphal Sunday local election, however, Erdogan claimed
    that he owed the success at the polls to his government's foreign
    policy. "We surely got many messages from the poll results, but the
    most important is the support extended to our foreign policy," Erdogan
    said. "Turkey's peaceful, negotiation-oriented foreign policy in
    defense of the rights and the rule of law has once again received full
    credit from our nation."

    Erdogan also declared on March 31 in his victory speech after the
    election, "Syria is now in a war against us." Yet, it is worth noting
    that a March 25 audio leak of Turkey's top officials' conversations
    suggested that they were arguing about staging an attack from Syria,
    making war inevitable.

    All that being said, there certainly is serious tension at the Syrian
    border, but Turkey is in no war with Syria. When speaking about
    anything related to war, it is crucial to get the facts right. Let's
    start, therefore, by asking Turkey's prime minister who carried out
    the Reyhanli attack, and if it really was al-Qaeda, why he chose to
    frame the country's main opposition as the enemy.

    http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/04/reyhanli-qaeda-bombing-attack-admits.html

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