Special to WorldTribune.com

ANKARA — Turkey and the United States have agreed to establish a
buffer zone along northern Syria.

Officials said Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan and U.S. President
Barack Obama agreed that Ankara would launch a buffer zone along its
southeastern border with Syria. They said the buffer zone, located along the
911-kilometer border, would accommodate refugees who were fleeing the bloody
campaign of President Bashar Assad.

“The insecurity in Syria is directly affecting us,” a Turkish official
said.

In a briefing on March 26, the official said details of the proposed
buffer zone have not yet been agreed upon. The official, who did not want to be named, said Erdogan and Obama discussed the Turkish zone as one of several measures meant to ease the humanitarian crisis in Syria.

“This is just an option,” the official said. “Nothing has been decided so far.”

But other officials said the buffer zone would be established along the Syrian-Turkish border with the assistance of Washington as well as financial aid by such allies as Qatar and Saudi Arabia. They said the Obama administration was expected to help equip Ankara to maintain security in the zone while the Gulf Cooperation Council states would provide aid for the
refugees.

Turkey, which closed its embassy in Damascus, already hosts 17,000
Syrian refugees. Officials said Ankara was expecting up to 500,000 Syrians
should the civil war intensify.

“There could be a huge influx like we faced in the first [1991] Gulf
War,” the official said. “Nobody knows what would happen in such an
eventuality.”

Erdogan and Obama were said to have also agreed to provide what
officials termed “non-lethal” aid to Syrian rebels, who reported their first
operations from Turkish soil. They said the assistance could include
communications systems and medical equipment. On March 27, Assad’s convoy
was reported to have been attacked during the president’s visit to Homs.

“Turkey is trying to take the initiative on ending the humanitarian
crime in Syria and to ease the tears being shed there,” Turkish Justice
Minister Saad Allah Ergin said. “Turkey cannot remain indifferent to the
tragedy taking place near it.”

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