Why Turkey Is Responding Cautiously
Updated: 2:15pm UK, Thursday 04 October 2012
The cross border shelling between Syria and Turkey has brought the two countries closer to conflict, but neither side wants to go to war with the other and are seeking ways to de-escalate the situation.
On Wednesday at least one shell fell inside a Turkish town, just a few hundred yards from a border post taken by Syrian rebels last month which the Syrian army is trying to take back.
Five civilians were killed, a women, her three children and a friend. It was the latest in a series of cross-border incidents but by far the most serious.
It is not yet proven if the shell was fired by Syrian Army forces or Syrian rebels, but the Turkish government held the Syrian Army responsible and began firing at army positions.
This might seem an odd way to de-escalate tensions, but the Turkish government is playing a difficult and dangerous balancing act.
Ankara has to balance public opinion which is both outraged at the deaths of civilians, but does not want war. It needs to react strongly, but not too strongly, and has done this in a number of ways.
The return shelling, and movement of extra forces closer to the 560-mile border, are messages that Turkey will not tolerate another incident.
By calling a Nato meeting it signalled to Damascus that it will try and involve Nato in any further action. However, it called the meeting under Article 4 of the organizations charter.
Article 4 is for "urgent consultations" if a member state feels threatened. If it had called an Article 5 meeting, it would have been asking Nato to consider that the attack on Turkey was an attack on all Nato members.
Nato's communique, issued after a 50-minute meeting was measured and gave no indications that any members were considering action.
Without Nato involvement Turkey, already reluctant to plunge into a war, is unlikely to try and take things much further.
By Thursday morning, Turkish politicians were describing their military action as "a warning" but saying they do not want war.
Russia advised Damascus to describe the original incident as a mistake, and most other major powers condemned Syria but called for restraint by all sides.
Neither country wants a war for various reasons including that both Governments are tied up fighting an insurgency, Turkey against Kurdish separatists, Syria against the rebel forces.
Turkey has demonstrated that if provoked, its forces may cross the border. However, a more likely strategy will be to increase the aid it already gives to the Syrian rebels hoping they will be able to push President Bashar al Assad's forces even further back from the border and eventually out of range.
The likelihood is that this tense situation will be temporarily calmed down, but it is a very dangerous time, especially if local commanders on the ground are on a hair trigger to react to any military activity deemed hostile.
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