Failed international attempts add to rising numbers

ISTANBUL- Hürriyet Daily News

Syrians walk by a building which was damaged in Aleppo. More than 35,000 people have been killed in clashes. AP photo

The violence in Syria has become endemic as the death toll surpasses a hundred every day. Failed international attempts have also contributed to the increasing numbers of deaths and refugees.

July 1: The international community made a one last-ditch, unsuccessful effort to halt the worsening violence in Syria at talks in Geneva. The plan agreed upon stipulated the formation of a transitional government composed of members of President Bashar al-Assad’s government and opposition figures.

July 4: The bodies of the two Turkish pilots of an F-4 Phantom warplane shot down by Syrian forces were discovered.

July 6: Gen. Manaf Tlass became the highest-ranking military officer to have abandoned the Syrian regime, as a member of al-Assad’s inner circle and a childhood friend of the leader.

July 17: Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan went to Moscow for talks on Syria.

July 18: A suicide bombing at a National Security Building in Damascus killed Syrian Defense Minister Gen. Daoud Rajha, al-Assad’s security adviser Hasan Turkmani, al-Assad’s brother-in-law, Assef Shawkat and the interior minister, Mohammad Ibrahim al-Shaar.

July 25: Turkey closed all border gates with Syria due to the worsening security conditions, though it still let refugees cross.

Aug. 1: Following the withdrawal of Syrian forces from the northern towns of the country, Turkey was alarmed at the growing influence of the Democratic Union Party (PYD) which has ties to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

Aug. 5: Syrian Prime Minister Riyad Hijab defected to Jordan with his family, one month after Gen. Tlass’ defection.

Apaydın row
Sept. 1: About 5,000 people were killed in Syria’s civil war in August, the highest figure ever reported in more than 17 months of fighting between government forces and the opposition.

Sept. 4: Turkish Parliament’s Human Rights Commission visited the Apaydın camp near the Syrian border. The visit to the camp turned into a political row after a delegation of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) claimed that they could not get approval from authorities to visit the camp.

Sept. 17: The foreign ministers of Turkey, Egypt and Iran convened in Cairo to discuss the political and humanitarian aspects of developments in Syria.

Sept. 19: A report by a military prosecutor said the Turkish F-4 Phantom warplane that crashed into the Mediterranean on June 22 was shot down by a Syrian air defense missile even though the missile did not directly hit the plane.

Sept. 22: The opposition Free Syrian Army (FSA) moved their command base from Turkey to “liberated areas” inside Syria.

Oct. 2: A Syrian shell killed five Turkish civilians in the Akçakale district of Şanlıurfa. Turkey has directed double the amount of shellfire at Syria in retaliation stemming from Ankara’s changed rules of engagement.

Oct. 4: Turkish Parliament passed a government motion for a one-year mandate authorizing the military to use ground troops for cross-border military operations into Syria. The Turkish government has put its armed forces into a “high state of readiness” because of the tension along the border.

Oct. 10: A civilian Syrian passenger airplane flying from Moscow to Damascus was forced to land at Ankara, and some of the cargo aboard was seized due to intelligence that it included material in violation of international civil aviation rules.

Oct. 14: Turkey closed its air space to Syrian civilian flights in response to a similar move by the Syrian government.

Oct. 22: The number of Syrians fleeing the violence surpassed 358,000, with more than 100,000 of them in Turkey.

Oct. 25: The Syrian army said it will halt all military operations until Oct. 29 in response to a proposal for a temporary cease-fire for Eid al-Adha or the Feast of Sacrifice by international peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi.

Oct. 26: Sporadic clashes across the country threatened to undermine the fragile cease-fire. According to activists more than 35,000 people have been killed in clashes.