Turkey calls on US, allies to reconsider Syria no-fly zone

Turkey called on the United States and other nations Monday to rethink its proposal for a no-fly zone in northern Syria hours after a rebel commander allied with Syria’s Kurds said Turkish airstrikes killed one fighter and wounded others.
Turkey has long called for a no-fly zone to protect Syrian opposition forces from President Bashar Assad’s air force. Ankara sent its own ground troops into Syria in August, and has carried out strikes targeting the Daesh group and US-backed Kurdish forces, which it views as an extension of the Kurdish insurgency in southeastern Turkey.
Addressing a NATO parliamentary assembly in Istanbul, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan again criticized allies’ reliance on Syrian Kurdish fighters to battle Daesh.
Turkey’s positions have put it at odds with Washington, which has refused to directly target Assad’s forces while providing air support for the Syrian Kurds, who have proven to be among the most successful ground forces battling Daesh.
It’s unclear how those policies might change under President-elect Donald Trump, who has expressed skepticism about American support for Syrian rebels and hinted at joining forces with Moscow against Daesh.
“I hope that in the upcoming process, this will be reassessed, especially by the United States, and positive steps will be taken so that terrorism’s back is broken and Turkey is rid of the threat of terrorism,” Erdogan said.
His comments came after Adnan Abu Amjad, a Syrian rebel commander allied with Kurdish forces, said Turkish warplanes struck his group near the northern town of Manbij late Sunday, killing one fighter and wounding others.
“The Turkish state is a terrorist state that is attacking positions of the military council that is fighting Daesh,” said Abu Amjad, commander of the Manbij Military Council, using an Arabic acronym to refer to Daesh.
Russian warplanes are also soaring through Syria’s crowded skies, striking insurgents in a massive offensive announced last week that is aimed at shoring up Assad’s forces.
“The bombing that is conducted by the Russian and Syrian air forces is just adding to the human suffering in Syria,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told the assembly in Istanbul.
He said Syrian government forces are responsible for “indiscriminate bombing” of the northern city of Aleppo, Syria’s largest, where opposition activists reported a seventh day of intense airstrikes and shelling on Monday.

Syrian generals indicted
The United States on Monday named a dozen Syrian generals and officers accused of leading attacks on civilian targets in the five-year war and warned they would one day face justice.
US Ambassador Samantha Power said the military commanders were involved in “killing and injuring civilians” with assaults on schools, hospitals and homes since the outbreak of the war in 2011.
“The United States will not let those who have commanded units involved in these actions hide anonymously behind the facade of the Assad regime,” Power told the Security Council.
Among those named were five major generals — Adib Salameh, Jawdat Salbi Mawas, Tahir Hamid Khalil, Jamil Hassan and Rafiq Shihadeh — along with five brigadier generals and two colonels.
The council met as Syrian and Russian warplanes pounded rebel-held parts of northern Syria including Aleppo, where food rations were running out in the besieged eastern part of the city. “Those behind such attacks must know that we in the international community are watching their actions, documenting their abuses and one day they will be held accountable,” said Power.
“These individuals feel impunity,” she said, warning that so did former Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic and Liberian warlord Charles Taylor who faced trial for war crimes.

Fears grow for Aleppo civilians
Syrian regime forces advanced quickly in rebel-held areas of Aleppo on Monday, pressing a new offensive in defiance of international concern over the fate of the city and its residents.
Both US President Barack Obama and the UN’s Syria envoy expressed pessimism about the future of the city, where more than 250,000 people are besieged in the rebel-held east.
More than 100 civilians have been killed in the east since the regime’s latest offensive began on Tuesday, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor.
The group said government forces backed by Iranian and Russian troops and fighters from Lebanon’s Hezbollah had captured the eastern part of the Masakan Hanano neighborhood. “It is the most important advance inside the eastern neighborhoods that the regime has made so far,” said Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman.
“If they take control of Masakan Hanano, the regime will have line of fire control over several rebel-held neighborhoods and will be able to cut off the northern parts of rebel-held Aleppo from the rest of the opposition-held districts.”

Source: Arab News