DISTURBING SIGNALS FROM REYHANLI

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has ended his visit to the US. Washington and Ankara - the two most active of the "Friends of Syria" who are demanding the immediate removal from power of Syrian President Bashar Assad - are openly admitting the possibility of external foreign action against official Damascus.

The key factor that contributed to such a significant toughening of the positions of Turkey and the US on the Syrian question was the terrorist acts in the Turkish town of Reyhanli in the south-east of the country close to the Syrian border, Explosions took the lives of 50 people and another 155 were injured, Official Ankara was not slow in placing the blame for the terrorist acts on the Syrian special services. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said: "The terrorist acts were linked totally with the Syrian regime. This was a provocation aimed at the Syrian refugees in Turkey." And Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu warned that the country's authorities reserve the right to take any measures in response to the explosions in Reyhanli.

Damascus rejects these charges. The Syrian authorities have even expressed their readiness to conduct a joint investigation with Ankara into the terrorist acts. However, the Turkish prime minister rejected the Syrians' proposal, stressing: "We have nothing in common with this regime."

One's attention is drawn to the fact that the explosions in Reyhanli were organized in the run-up to Erdogan's trip to the US. In connection with this the Turkish Hurriyet newspaper expressed the opinion that "Erdogan's visit to the US acquires even more significance. During the course of the visit measures that will be adopted by the international community in relation to Syria are due to be agreed." And, indeed, the tragedy in Reyhanli set the tone for the Turkish prime minister's trip to the US. Furthermore, the results of the visit give grounds to assume that these explosions could become the starting point of possible foreign intervention in Syria.

Prime Minister Erdogan and US President Barack Obama reaffirmed the positions of their countries over the fact that Syrian leader Bashar Assad must quit the political arena. "We agreed to step up the pressure on the Assad regime and work with the Syrian opposition…We both agree that Assad must go," Obama said. At the same time, he noted that the US reserves the right to take diplomatic and military steps to settle the situation in Syria. The American leader expressed the conviction that tens of thousands of lives in Syria are enough for the international community to take measures to resolve the conflict in that country. Erdogan, for his part, reaffirmed that there were no differences between the US and Turkey on the Syrian question.

From reports in the world media on the results of the meeting between Barack Obama and Recep Tayyip Erdogan one may conclude that Ankara and Washington agreed on the need to implement a number of measures that would significantly worsen the Syrian regime's military positions. Most likely they amount to establishing an air-exclusion zone over Syria's border regions and more active support for the Syrian opposition formations, including arms supplies. Agreement regarding United States' support for Turkey if the latter decides to undertake an "act of retaliation" against Syria is not ruled out either. However, a number of Turkish analysts believe that Turkey will not enter into an armed conflict with Syria and is merely seeking to draw up a common tactic of future actions jointly with the USA and NATO.

Be that as it may, the accusations against the Syrian authorities of committing terrorist acts in Reyhanli are a good reason for stepping up external pressure on the Assad regime and organizing direct intervention in the inter-Syrian conflict. And the verdict of "terrorist activity" will be a much more convincing argument in the struggle against the Syrian regime than the statements of western leaders about official Damascus using chemical weapons.

As far as the tightening of Turkey's position is concerned one is led to think that its intention (or agreement) to play pretty much the role of the dominant weapon prepared to strike against the positions of Syrian government forces is linked with Ankara receiving from the West, and especially the US, certain guarantees that in a future division of the "Syrian pie" her interests will be directly taken into account. And these are not just financial-economic interests - they are also directly related to the Kurdish problem and consist of preventing the sovereignization of the Kurdish-populated regions of Syria.

In any event, recent events cast great doubt on the possibility of holding an international conference on resolving the Syrian crisis, agreement on which was reached during the recent visit by US Secretary of State John Kerry to Russia. The purpose of the conference was declared to be a discussion of ways to form a transitional government in Syria, "based on the agreement of the Syrian people as a whole". This subject was also discussed during the visit to Russia by British Prime Minister David Cameron, who welcomed the American-Russian proposal to hold a conference. However the West's demand for Basher Assad's immediate resignation, which was confirmed during Erdogan's visit to the US in fact leaves the proposed forum with no chance of working out decisions in accordance with the general consensus of the "Syrian people as a whole".

The US and its allies in the camp of the "Friends of Syria", by all accounts, are determined to force an untying of the Syrian knot which is being made difficult for the anti-Asad coalition that is taking shape bearing in mind the recent successes of Syrian government troops in the stand-off with the armed opposition. The next few weeks and months will show what will come of the readiness expressed by the US president to take steps, including military steps, to resolve the Syrian problem. The only thing that is clear is that the development of events in Syria unfortunately confirms the words recently let slip by British Prime Minister Cameron: "The history of Syria is written in the blood of its people."