Damascus reportedly agrees to buffer zone along Turkish border

The Syrian government has agreed to maintain a 10 kilometer (6 mile) buffer zone along the Turkish border following three days of cross-border fire, Turkish media outlets reported Saturday.

Citing “reliable sources,” Today’s Zaman reported that President Bashar Assad’s regime had told its military to keep aircraft at least 10 kilometers away from the Turkish border and to avoid firing artillery towards the area. The report also said that a number of Syrian warplanes that had flown near the border were turned back immediately by Syrian authorities.

Neither Turkey nor Syria have confirmed the deal.

The formation of a demilitarized zone along the Syrian-Turkish border has been a longstanding request by Syrian opposition groups, who say it would allow rebels to operate freely and civilians to seek refuge.

On Friday, a mortar shell fired from Syria landed in the southern Turkish region of Hatay, causing no injuries.

The mortar landed near the border town of Yayladağı, just yards from the Syrian frontier. Hatay Governor Celalettin Lekesiz told Turkey’s Anadolu news agency that the Turkish military responded with artillery fire. No Syrian casualties were reported.

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Friday’s flare up represented the third consecutive day of cross-border fire by the Turkish military after a Syrian artillery shell killed five Turkish citizens in the border town of Akçakale on Wednesday.

The Turkish parliament on Thursday approved military intervention in Syria in response to hostilities. “We are not war-lovers, but we are not far from war either,” Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said at an event in Istanbul on Friday.

“Anyone trying to test Turkey’s capacity for determination . . . would be making a deadly mistake,” he said. “We are not bluffing. We are not dealing in hollow statements.”

Syria’s ambassador to the UN Bashar Ja’afari said Thursday that his government was not seeking any escalation of violence with Turkey, and he read a letter to reporters that he had delivered to the Security Council. The letter sent Syria’s “deepest condolences” to the families of the victims in Akçakale.

The letter also urged Turkey and Syria’s other neighbors to “act wisely, rationally and responsibly” and to prevent the cross-border infiltration of “terrorists and insurgents.”

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expressed alarm at the escalating border tensions and warned Thursday that the risk for a region-wide conflict was increasing.