President al-Assad Discusses with Lebanese Delegation the Situation in Syria and the Pressure Targeting Its Pan-Arab and National Stances
http://www.sana.sy/ara/2/2011/10/04/373368.htm
http://www.sana.sy/eng/21/2011/10/04/373373.htm
Oct 04, 2011
DAMASCUS, (SANA) – President Bashar al-Assad on Tuesday met a Lebanese delegation consisting of head of the Union Party Abdul Rahim Mourad, General Coordinator for the Follow-up Committee of the Beirut and Coast Conference Kamal Chatila, and Secretary of the Leadership Committee of the Independent Nasserite Movement Mustafa Hamdan.
National Unity Platform in Lebanon: acts of armed groups have no relation to democracy… Aoun: attempts to hit Syria failed (al-Huss, Naserist from Sunni, and Aoun of Maronite express support)
http://www.sana.sy/eng/22/2011/10/04/373508.htm
http://www.sana.sy/ara/3/2011/10/04/373501.htm
Oct 04, 2011
Beirut, (SANA)-
Turkey starts military drill at Syrian border
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/n.php?n=turkey-starts-military-drill-at-syrian-border-2011-10-04
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
ANKARA/PRETORIA
The Turkish military stages an exercise near the Syrian border as Prime Minister Erdoğan signals sanctions are on the way against Syria
Turkey will consider more sanctions against Syria as it cannot stand idly by while Damascus shoots demonstrators, the country's prime minister said Tuesday, the same day the Turkish military announced plans to conduct exercises near its southern border.
There can be no justification for killing defenseless people, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said Tuesday in Pretoria at a joint press conference with Deputy South African President Kgalema Motlanthe.
Stepping up pressure on embattled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Erdoğan said he would lay out Turkey's plans for sanctions against Damascus after he visits a Syrian refugee camp near the two countries' common border in the coming days.
"Regarding sanctions, we will make an assessment and announce our road map after the visit to [the southern province of] Hatay, setting out the steps," Erdoğan told reporters, adding that he expected to visit the region on the weekend or at the start of next week.
The prime minister is expected to announce new sanctions during the trip.
Turkey has begun partially implementing some sanctions, the prime minister said, but added that it had chosen not to announce them officially because of the urgency of the matter.
The plan for more sanctions heralds a further deterioration in the previously friendly relations between Ankara and Damascus since the start of al-Assad's crackdown on protesters. More than 7,500 Syrians have taken refuge in camps established in Hatay, having fled the violence at home.
Erdoğan said they had an advanced friendship with al-Assad but added that the Syrian president had betrayed the principles underlying the friendship.
"What is important to us is the Syrian people. The freedoms [in Syria] are disregarded [by the government]," said Erdoğan, adding that al-Assad was repeating his father Hafez al-Assad's violent campaign against Hama and Homs.
"We never expected that," said Erdoğan.
Military exercises on Syrian border
Turkey's military exercises are likely to coincide with Erdoğan planned visit to Hatay. The military said in a statement on its website Tuesday that the maneuvers would take place in the southern province between Oct. 5 and 13. Turkey has earlier said it had stopped two ships carrying arms to Syria.
The aim of the exercises is to test "the mobilization and the communication between the ministries, public institutions and Turkish army in case of a war," said the military.
At least 2,700 have been killed in the crackdown in Syria, according to the United Nations. Demonstrators have begun to demand some form of international protection that stops short of Libya-style Western military intervention. NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen recently told daily Hürriyet that the conditions in the country were not sufficient to warrant an international intervention.
Turkey to conduct military exercise near Syria
http://www.todayszaman.com/news-258813-turkey-to-conduct-military-exercise-near-syria.html
04 October 2011, Tuesday / REUTERS, ANKARA
Turkey's military will conduct an exercise in the southern province of Hatay, where more than 7,000 Syrians have taken refuge from Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's security forces.
The Oct. 5-13 "mobilization" exercise, announced on the military's website on Tuesday, may coincide with a visit that Prime Minister Tayyip Erdoğan is expected to make to refugee camps in Hatay after he returns from South Africa this week.
The army said the exercise would involve the 39th mechanized infantry brigade and 730 reserve soldiers.
Turkey's once-close relations with Syria have soured as Erdoğan has fiercely criticized Assad's crackdown on protesters, urging him to end the bloodshed and enact reforms.
Syria has a longstanding territorial claim to Hatay province, but had put this on the back burner in recent years, when Erdoğan and Assad cultivated close ties.
Erdoğan said last month that Assad would be ousted by his people "sooner or later" and warned that Syria could slide into a sectarian civil war between Alawites and Sunnis.
Most Syrians, like most Turks, are Sunni Muslims, while Assad is from the minority Alawite Muslim sect.
Ankara, which has already imposed an arms embargo, has said it is preparing further sanctions against the Syrian government.
The Hatay exercise may revive speculation, denied by officials, that Turkey plans to create a buffer zone in Syria to protect civilians and prevent a flood of refugees to Turkey.
Syrian refugee numbers have remained relatively low and Erdoğan is under little public pressure to take decisive action.
During the 1991 Gulf War, about half a million Iraqi Kurds fled to Turkey, returning only after Western powers, along with Turkish contingents, set up a safe haven across the border.
Syria and Turkey almost went to war in the late 1990s when Damascus was sheltering Turkish Kurd guerrillas.
Syria's old claim to Hatay has bedeviled relations with Turkey. After the Ottoman Empire collapsed in World War One, the province passed to French mandate Syria. Syria gained independence in 1936, but Hatay became part of Turkey in 1939.
Erdoğan was reported to have reached an understanding with Assad in the mid-2000s whereby Syria would drop its claim on Hatay in return for enhanced trade and water rights from Turkey, but neither side has formally acknowledged any such agreement.
With relations again chilly, Turkey has hosted several meetings of Syrian opposition groups, including one at the weekend where a broad-based Syrian National Council was formed.
The council, grouping Assad's secular and Islamist foes, said the world was obliged to protect the Syrian people, but it rejected foreign intervention that harmed Syrian sovereignty.
Prime Minister Erdoğan: Syria sanctions to be announced
http://www.todayszaman.com/news-258796-prime-minister-erdogan-syria-sanctions-to-be-announced.html
04 October 2011, Tuesday / ERDAL ھEN, PRETORIA
Report: Assad told Davutoğlu Syria would set fire on Israel if NATO attacks
http://www.todayszaman.com/news-258900-report-assad-told-davutoglu-syria-would-set-fire-on-israel-if-nato-attacks.html
05 October 2011, Wednesday / TODAYSZAMAN.COM,
Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu had talks with Syria's President Bashar al-Assad on Aug. 9.
Syria's embattled President Bashar al-Assad allegedly told Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu earlier in August during their marathon talks in Damascus that Syria will set fire on the Middle East and strike on Tel-Aviv if NATO attacks his country which is on the edge of a rapidly looming civil war.
"If a crazy measure is taken against Damascus, I will need not more than 6 hours to transfer hundreds of rockets and missiles to the Golan Heights to fire them at Tel Aviv," Assad reportedly told Davutoğlu after Turkish foreign minister allegedly conveyed the United States' warning message to him, Iran's Fars news agency reported on Tuesday.
Assad also told Davutoğlu that Damascus will also call on Lebanon's Hezbollah to launch "such an intensive rocket and missile attack on Israel that the Israeli spy agencies could never imagine."
"All these events will happen in three hours, but in the second three hours, Iran will attack the US warships in the Persian Gulf and the US and European interests will be targeted simultaneously," Assad said.
The report came at a time when Turkey's military announced that it will conduct a military drill Turkey's southern province of Hatay, home of some 7,500 Syrian refugees who fled violence in Syria.
Defected colonel calls for unity against Assad regime
http://arabnews.com/middleeast/article511663.ece
By AGENCIES
Published: Oct 4, 2011 23:00 Updated: Oct 4, 2011 23:42
ANKARA: A Syrian army colonel who fled to Turkey has called for a united front against President Bashar Assad's regime, the Anatolia news agency reported on Tuesday.
"Opponent forces in Syria should get united and close ranks until the regime collapses," Col. Riad Al-Asaad , who is currently taking refuge in Turkey, told the news agency.
مسؤولون إسرائيليون:سقوط النظام السوري يضعف المقاومة بالمنطقة
Israeli officials: the fall of the Syrian regime weaken the resistance in the region
http://www.sana.sy/ara/3/2011/10/04/373438.htm
October 04, .2011
Egyptian Figures Condemn Terrorist Crimes in Syria, See That Foreign Forces behind Events
http://www.sana.sy/eng/22/2011/10/04/373490.htm
http://www.sana.sy/ara/3/2011/10/04/373447.htm
Oct 04, 2011
Extraordinary Islamic Higher Education Ministers Conference in Saudi Arabia kicks off with the participation of Syria
http://www.sana.sy/eng/22/2011/10/04/373499.htm
Oct 04, 2011
Solhi Al-Wadi, the Absent-Present, Founder and Doyen of Syrian Classical Music
http://www.sana.sy/eng/28/2011/10/03/373323.htm
Oct 03, 2011
DAMASCUS, SANA_ Maestro Solhi al-Wadi was considered the founder and doyen of Syrian classical music. He had founded the Higher Institute of Music and the Syrian National Symphony Orchestra.
Durian his long musical career, he had worked to promote the national music project and the creation of a special privacy for the Syrian music which is still roaming the world achieving a unique presence at the international musical circles.
Solhi Al-Wadi was born in Baghdad in 1934 to an Iraqi father and a Jordanian mother who settled in Damascus. After an early childhood spent in Damascus, he was sent to a boarding school in Alexandria then after graduation he continued his studies at the Royal Academy of Music in London.
On his return to Syria, al-Wadi established the Arab Institute of Music in 1961, becoming its director in 1962, a post he held until 2001.
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