By Al Arabiya with agencies<\/p>\n
<\/span><\/p>\n A letter attacking Turkey\u2019s \u201cdestructive\u201d role in the Syrian conflict has been sent from President Bashar al-Assad\u2019s regime to the United Nations on Friday, according to Syrian state media.<\/p>\n The Syrian foreign ministry\u2019s letter accuses Turkey of harboring \u201cterrorists from Al-Qaeda\u2019s network\u201d, the SANA news agency said.<\/p>\n The ministry also accused Ankara of taking \u201cincreasingly hostile stances towards Syria, by blockin. measures taken by Damascus for a political solution to the crisis\u201d that the U.N. says has left some 70,000 people dead.<\/p>\n The letter, published by SANA, also criticizes Turkey for \u201cpressuring Syrian opposition members to refuse a political plan\u201d proposed in a speech Assad on January 9.<\/p>\n Assad in the rare speech offered negotiations to end the conflict but only to opposition groups with no links to rebels the regime considers to be \u201cterrorists.\u201d<\/p>\n The proposal was rejected by Western and Arab countries, as well as by Turkey and the Syrian opposition, including dissident groups tolerated by Assad\u2019s regime.<\/p>\n \u201cTurkey supports and publicly justifies terrorist, destructive acts\u201d against Syria, said the ministry in letters addressed to the U.N. Security Council and to Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.<\/p>\n \u201cTurkey has turned its territory into camps used to house, train, finance and infiltrate armed terrorist groups, chief among them the Al-Qaeda network and the Al-Nusra Front,\u201d said the letter.<\/p>\n Strike back<\/p>\n Earlier on Friday, Turkish artillery struck back after a shell fired from neighboring Syria ploughed into Turkish territory without causing any casualties, the state-run news agency reported.<\/p>\n The shell fell near the town of Yayladag in Hatay province near the border with Syria and Turkish forces retaliated immediately, Anatolia said.<\/p>\n Since Syrian fire killed five Turks on October 3, Turkey has systematically retaliated to every cross-border shelling.<\/p>\n Key opposition backer Turkey early in the revolt against Assad broke ties with Damascus and has led international calls for his ouster.<\/p>\n Some 200,000 Syrian refugees have fled the conflict in their country for Turkey, many of them living in insalubrious camps.<\/p>\n Assad\u2019s regime views dissidents and insurgents as foreign-backed \u201cterrorists\u201d whose aim is to destroy Syria.<\/p>\n Al-Nusra Front, which the United States says has links to Al-Qaeda, has been listed by Washington as a \u201cterrorist\u201d organization.<\/p>\n Its jihadists have claimed responsibility for most suicide bombings that have shaken Syria in the spiraling conflict.<\/p>\n Violence continues<\/p>\n Syria\u2019s rebels captured a military airbase in the northern province of Aleppo on Friday and geared for a major battle against loyalist forces for control of two nearby strategic airports, a watchdog said.<\/p>\n The rebels, from the Islamist Al-Nusra Front and the Muhajireen battalion, overran the base in Sfeira, east of Aleppo international airport, and captured a large stockpile of ammunition, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.<\/p>\n The Britain-based watchdog also reported intermittent clashes around Aleppo international airport itself as well as around Nayrab airbase and another military complex, as the two sides squared up for a major fight.<\/p>\n \u201cThe army shelled the area around Aleppo international airport and Nayrab air base on Friday morning, while rebels used home-made rockets to shell Nayrab,\u201d Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said.<\/p>\n \u201cThe army is preparing a large-scale operation to take back control of Base 80,\u201d he added of a military complex tasked with managing both Nayrab and Aleppo airports.<\/p>\n Rebels seized the base on Wednesday after a battle that left at least 150 dead from both sides, among them senior army officers, said the Observatory.<\/p>\n Insurgents fighting President Bashar al-Assad\u2019s regime \u201care trying to take control of Nayrab and to destroy the runways at Aleppo international airport, which the army is using for military purposes,\u201d Abdel Rahman said.<\/p>\n Activists in Aleppo have said the rebel Free Syrian Army shifted its focus weeks ago from the city to airbases in the province.<\/p>\n Insurgents see the capture of airports such as Al-Jarrah, also in Aleppo province, on Tuesday as a way of seizing large amounts of ammunition and to put out of action warplanes used by the regime to bombard rebel-held areas.<\/p>\n Regime tanks, meanwhile, shelled the town of Khan Sheikhun in the province of Idlib, killing at least 11 civilians, said the Observatory.<\/p>\n In Damascus, the army shelled the eastern district of Jobar, where rebels have set up enclaves, the Britain-based group said.<\/p>\n See here what is left of Assad’s regime: The Lion’s Den<\/p>\n via Damascus letter accuses Turkey of harboring al-Qaeda terrorists.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Al Arabiya with agencies Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad (L) meets with Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu in Damascus August 9, 2011. Assad had said his forces would continue to pursue “terrorist groups” (Reuters) A letter attacking Turkey\u2019s \u201cdestructive\u201d role in the Syrian conflict has been sent from President Bashar al-Assad\u2019s regime to the United […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":29529,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[3765,3883,1571],"class_list":["post-65663","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-syria","tag-al-qaeda","tag-bashar-al-assad","tag-ahmet-davutoglu"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65663","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65663"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65663\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}