{"id":11746,"date":"2012-08-14T07:41:22","date_gmt":"2012-08-14T14:41:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=11746"},"modified":"2012-08-14T07:41:22","modified_gmt":"2012-08-14T14:41:22","slug":"turkeys-border-beligerence-using-the-pkk-as-a-front-for-invasion-of-syria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=11746","title":{"rendered":"Turkey&#8217;s border beligerence &#8211; using the PKK as a front for invasion of Syria"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Turkish army stages military drill at Syria frontier: report<\/strong><br \/>\n14 August 14, 2012 &#8211; Agence France Presse<\/p>\n<p>ANKARA: The Turkish army on Tuesday staged a new military drill near its border with Syria, in the throes of an uprising that has led to deteriorating relations between the neighbouring nations, the Anatolia news agency reported.<\/p>\n<p>Turkish tanks accompanied by advanced armoured personnel carriers and tactical missile-launching platforms were deployed at the Oncupinar crossing in southern Kilis province for the drill, the report said.<\/p>\n<p>Tuesday&#8217;s drill follows several military exercises at the Syrian border after the government warned that it would pursue Kurdish rebels across the frontier.<\/p>\n<p>Turkish media has interpreted the drills as a show of force against Damascus, which Ankara accuses of giving a freehand to Syrian Kurds allowing them to launch cross-border attacks in Turkey.<\/p>\n<p>The relationship between Ankara and Damascus hit an all-time low after a Turkish Phantom jet was brought down by Syrian fire on June 22, killing its two-men crew and leading Ankara to brand Damascus as a &#8220;hostile&#8221; opponent.<\/p>\n<p>The Syrian regime counters the Turkish accusations with claims that Turkey is supporting &#8220;terrorists&#8221; to bring down the regime, referring to the Free Syrian Army of defecting soldiers, currently based on Turkish soil near the border.<\/p>\n<p>The jet shoot-down, still under investigation, triggered a massive military build-up all along the 900-kilometre (550-mile) border, shuttered by large numbers of Turkish tanks, weapons, missile batteries and troops.<\/p>\n<p>Turkey is currently home to more than 60,000 Syrian refugees in several camps along the border where rebel forces made up of army defectors are also based.<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.dailystar.com.lb\/News\/Middle-East\/2012\/Aug-14\/184651-turkish-army-stages-military-drill-at-syria-frontier-report.ashx#axzz23X0kifP9\" target=\"_blank\">&#8230;more<\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"igit_tsb_button\" style=\"float: left; margin-right: 10px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/share?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.crookedbough.com%2F%3Fp%3D11746&amp;text=Turkey%27s+border+beligerence+-+using+the+PKK+as+a+front+for+invasion+of+Syria&amp;count=horizontal&amp;via=\" style=\"\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Turkish army stages military drill at Syria frontier: report 14 August 14, 2012 &#8211; Agence France Presse ANKARA: The Turkish army on Tuesday staged a new military drill near its border with Syria, in the throes of an uprising that has led to deteriorating relations between the neighbouring nations, the Anatolia news agency reported. Turkish <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=11746#more-'\" class=\"more-link\">more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[247],"tags":[1354],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11746"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11746"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11746\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11748,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11746\/revisions\/11748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}