In response to claims that Turkey would be conducting a cross-border military operation in Syria, the Turkish foreign minister said any necessary announcements about the issue would be made after the National Security Council (MGK) meeting, which will be held June 29.
“We have a MGK meeting tomorrow; we will make the necessary announcements afterwards,” state-run Anadolu Agency reported Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu as saying on June 28 in the Black Sea province of Ordu’s Ünye district, neither accepting nor denying any of the claims.
Hürriyet Daily News reported June 27 that Turkey’s government wanted more active military action to support the Free Syrian Army (FSA) against the Syrian regime and both Kurdish and jihadist forces in Syrian territory, but the military was reluctant to do so, playing for time as the country heads for a new coalition government.
According to HDN sources, who asked not to be named, the “active support” that Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu’s government seeks from the military ranges from long-range artillery fire (not only in retaliatory terms) against the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) positions in Syrian territory to air operations, and includes entering Syria with land forces to secure a strip along the Turkish border.