DAMASCUS: The Syrian regime on Saturday condemned Turkey’s military presence in northern Syria as a violation of a 1998 protocol between the two countries.
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has insisted the Adana Protocol gives his country the right to intervene militarily in the neighboring country.
Turkey and its Syrian opposition proxies control part of northern Syria, and Ankara has repeatedly threatened another military operation against Kurdish fighters on its southern border.
On Saturday, the Foreign Ministry in Damascus accused Ankara of repeatedly breaching the Adana deal throughout Syria’s eight-year war.
“Since 2011, the Turkish regime has violated and continues to violate this agreement,” a ministry source said, quoted by state news agency SANA.
The source accused Turkey of “supporting terrorists,” using the regime’s usual term for both extremists and fighters.
It said Ankara was breaching the deal through “occupying Syrian territory via terrorist organizations linked to it or directly via Turkish military forces.”
Opposition backer Turkey has twice led incursions into northern Syria in 2016 and 2018, since when then, its forces and allied Syrian proxies have controlled a patch of territory on the border.
Ankara has repeatedly threatened to march on areas further east, where Kurdish fighters it views as “terrorists” have led the US-backed battle against Daesh.
Washington last month said it would pull all its troops from the war-torn country, leaving the Kurds scrambling to find a new ally in Damascus to avoid a Turkish assault.
On Friday, Erdogan said Turkey expected a “security zone” to be created in Syria in a few months.
Turkey accuses the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) which have led the fight against Daesh of being an extension of its outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
The Adana deal was signed in 1998 to end a crisis between the neighbors, sparked by the then- presence in Syria of PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan and bases run by the group.
Turkey argues the protocol provides Ankara with the legal ground to intervene in Syria against the PKK and its affiliates, because of the Syrian regime’s failure to act against the group.
Damascus has regained control of almost two-thirds of the country after significant Russia-backed victories against opposition fighters and militants since 2015, and hopes to see all areas of the country revert to its rule.
Syria’s war has killed 360,000 people and spiraled into a complex conflict involving world powers since starting in 2011 with the repression of anti-government protests.
Syria slams Turkey’s presence in north
Syria slams Turkey’s presence in north
- Turkish military forces in Syria a violation of deal, says Damascus
Iranian strikes kill two in UAE, injure eight in Qatar as regional conflict escalates
- UAE defense ministry said Iran fired 137 missiles and 209 drones at the territory
- Qatar intercepted most of the 65 missiles and 12 drones launched by Iran, said officials
ABU DHABI: Explosions rocked cities across the Gulf on Saturday, killing two people in Abu Dhabi, while smoke and flames rose from Dubai landmark The Palm as Iran launched waves of attacks in retaliation for US and Israeli strikes.
The attacks hit airports in Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Kuwait, as well as Gulf military bases and residential areas, raising fears of a wider conflict and rattling a region long seen as a haven of peace and security.
Across the UAE, Iran fired 137 missiles and 209 drones at the territory, the country’s defense ministry said, as projectiles streaked across the skies of every Gulf state but Oman, a mediator in the recent US-Iran talks.
The UAE defense ministry said most of the missiles and drones were intercepted but at Abu Dhabi’s Zayed International Airport officials said at least one person was killed and seven wounded in an “incident.”
Earlier, falling debris killed a Pakistani civilian in Abu Dhabi, the United Arab Emirates’ capital, officials said.
At Dubai International Airport four people were injured according to airport authorities and four others were also hurt at the luxury Palm development.
In Qatar, officials said Iran launched 65 missiles and 12 drones toward the Gulf state, most of which were intercepted, but eight people were injured in the salvos, with one of them in critical condition.
“We are scared of what the future is for us now, and we can’t say how the next few days are going to be,” Maha Manbaz, a nursing student in Doha told AFP.
Terrified’
Smoke poured from US bases in Abu Dhabi and Bahrain’s capital Manama, home of the American navy’s Fifth Fleet, witnesses saw.
A drone struck Kuwait’s international airport and a base housing US personnel was targeted. Three Kuwaiti soldiers and 12 other people were wounded, authorities said.
After Iran’s Revolutionary Guards reported missile strikes, US Central Command (CENTCOM) said on X that no American naval vessels were hit, damage to US facilities was minimal, and no US casualties had been reported.
Residential buildings were also targeted in Manama, with officials saying firefighters and civil defense teams had been dispatched to the scene.
“The sound of the first explosion terrified me,” said a 50-year-old retiree living near the US base in Manama’s Juffair area, where residents were quickly evacuated.
The UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar warned they reserved the right to respond to the attacks.
The oil-and-gas-rich Arab monarchies, lying just across the Gulf from Iran, are long-term American allies and host a clutch of US military bases.
“The Gulf states are sandwiched between Iran and Israel, and have to bear the worst inclinations of both,” said Bader Al-Saif, an assistant professor at Kuwait University.
“Iran’s attacks on the Gulf are misplaced. They’ll only alienate its neighbors and invite further distancing from Iran,” he added.
Conflict is unusual in the Gulf, which has traded on its reputation for stability to become the Middle East’s commercial and diplomatic hub.
‘Significant damage’
The unprecedented barrage targeted Qatar’s Al Udeid base, the region’s biggest US military base, as well as Riyadh and eastern Saudi Arabia.
The UAE, Qatar and Kuwait all announced that their airspace was closed.
An AFP journalist in Qatar saw one missile destroyed in a puff of white smoke, while another in Dubai saw a volley of Patriot interceptors taking off.
Iran fired missiles at Al Udeid last June after US strikes targeted Iranian nuclear facilities during a brief war with Israel.
The escalation also saw Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and UAE President Mohamed bin Zayed speak for the first time since a public row in late December.
The Saudi de facto ruler called the Emirati president and the pair discussed Iran’s retaliatory strikes on the Gulf and expressed solidarity and sympathy.
In Kuwait, an Iranian missile attack caused “significant damage” to the runway at an air base hosting Italian air force personnel, Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani was quoted by the ANSA news agency as saying.
Late on Saturday, Kuwaiti officials said a drone targeted a naval base there with air defense forces intercepting the projectile, according to a post by the defense ministry on X.
For many residents in the Gulf, which has drawn a cosmopolitan, largely expat population, the reaction was one of shock.
“I heard the explosions, I don’t know what I felt,” a Lebanese woman living in Riyadh told AFP.
“We came to the Gulf because it’s known to be safer than Lebanon. Now I don’t know what to do or how to think really.”
