Turkish officials are making no bones about being opposed to the current chemical weapons disarmament deal on Syria, not so much because of the arms themselves, but because it forestalls what they were hoping would be a US war to impose regime change.
Turkey was the first nation to openly back Syria’s rebel factions, most of which now use Turkish territory as an official base of operations, and the government is calling on the US to continue gearing up for an attack as “plan B” for when the next pretext arises.
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu is expected to not only continue to press for NATO intervention, but for additional arms for the various rebel factions as well, and its clear that with Turkey having put all its eggs in the regime-change basket, they’re sticking to it.
Davutoglu also bragged about having shot down a Syrian helicopter along the border, today, saying “nobody will dare to violate Turkey’s borders in any way again.” The fate of the pilots is unclear, though Syrian rebels reportedly captured one of them inside Turkish territory.
