There seems to be no end\u00a0in sight to the suffering of Syrian people.<\/p>\n
A suspected chemical attack at Khan Sheikhoun, near Idlib, a rebel-held area close to Turkish border, was one of the worst war crimes committed during Syria\u2019s six-year old conflict.<\/p>\n
It has not yet been properly investigated to determine who is responsible. It would be wrong to point the finger of blame at this stage.<\/p>\n
The UK-based monitors, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, claimed Syrian government or Russian jets were responsible. Eye-witness accounts suggested that fighter jets dropped toxic materials that caused people to choke to death.<\/p>\n
The Syrian government has denied responsibility for the attacks and has blamed opposition groups, but available information so far suggests strongly that the attack bored the hallmarks of the Syrian regime.<\/p>\n
Al-Assad forces were responsible for a chemical weapons attack in parts of Damascus in 2013 which killed hundreds of civilians.<\/p>\n
Allegations of chemical weapon use have been directed at some of the rebel forces in Syria\u2019s civil war before, but Tuesday morning\u2019s attack shows telltale signs of sarin, a banned chemical the Syrian regime is believed to have stockpiled.<\/p>\n
Not much happens without Russian knowledge in Syria these days, but the \u00a0Russian Defense Ministry categorically denied that their planes carried out any air strikes on Idlib on Tuesday morning.<\/p>\n
UN war crimes experts have already begun investigating and if the if the chemical used was sarin, they should be able to identify it, as traces of the agent remain in the area for years.<\/p>\n
The United States should also have a good idea about air sorties taking place on Tuesday morning.<\/p>\n
We may have a clearer picture at the UN Security Council, which was called for an emergency meeting the day after the attack.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, the same day that the UN Security Council evaluates the evidence, the EU, the UK, Norway, the UN and two Gulf countries, Qatar and Kuwait, are meeting in Brussels to discuss Syria and to support the peace process.<\/p>\n
Three key countries involved in Syria\u2019s conflict, Russia, Turkey and the United States, are staying away from the donor conference, choosing to be represented at a technical level only.<\/p>\n
Russia, mourning the victims of a terrorist attack at a St. Petersburg metro station on Monday, allegedly committed by a Central Asian Islamist militant, said very little about Idlib, other than rejecting any involvement.<\/p>\n
In the US, the White House spokesman Sean Spicer referred to Idlib attack as \u201cheinous actions by the Bashar al-Assad regime\u201d, but put the responsibility squarely on the previous administration\u2019s policy. \u201cThey are the consequences of the last administration\u2019s weakness and irresolution,\u201d he claimed. He also confirmed the White House view expressed a few days earlier, that the Trump administration did not see \u201ca fundamental option of regime change\u201d in Syria because of the \u201cpolitical reality\u201d in the country.<\/p>\n
For Turkey, the political reality is somewhat different.<\/p>\n
Idlib is next door to the Turkish city of Hatay, and what happens there has serious consequences for the country, which already houses millions of Syrian refugees. Hours after the suspected chemical attack, Turkey sent 30 ambulances to Syria to evacuate the injured to Turkish hospitals.<\/p>\n
Even though top Turkish authorities were careful not to point the finger to anyone openly, they called the attack a \u201cwar crime\u201d and warned that it would damage the Astana talks, their joint effort with Russia to bring the Syrian civil war to an end.<\/p>\n
Idlib province has large numbers of rebels, supported by Turkey, including the Free Syrian Army fighters and some Islamists groups, including the Al-Nusra Front. Recently, after the Syrian regime took control of Aleppo, thousands of anti-Assad fighters and their families flooded to Idlib.<\/p>\n
Tuesday\u2019s suspected chemical attack in Khan Sheikhoun is, first and foremost, a horrific atrocity perpetrated against the Syrian people, but it is also a sign of bigger security risks and diplomatic worries to come for Turkey.<\/p>\n
At a time, the country is tearing itself apart with a contentious system change of its own.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There seems to be no end\u00a0in sight to the suffering of Syrian people. A suspected chemical attack at Khan Sheikhoun, near Idlib, a rebel-held area close to Turkish border, was one of the worst war crimes committed during Syria\u2019s six-year old conflict. It has not yet been properly investigated to determine who is responsible. It […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[4],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28963"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28963"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28963\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28966,"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28963\/revisions\/28966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}