In his weekly address to his parliamentary deputies Tuesday, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the U.N. Security Council's failure last weekend to pass a motion pressuring Syria was a fiasco. He said Turkey is prepared to offer an alternative plan, even if that might trigger another veto by Russia and China, whose "no" votes blocked the original resolution on Saturday
The prime minister said Turkey is helping to prepare a new initiative with Western allies that support opponents of the Syrian regime. Turkey's foreign minister is set to visit Washington this week for high-level talks.
Arms and other support for the opposition both inside and outside Syria could be accelerated. And even if Turkey does not want to send their own troops in, escalated fighting could lead Turkey to set up humanitarian safe zones in enclaves along the border inside Syria. The image of more civilians dying at the hands of Assad's troops and the prospect of refugees flooding into Turkey might lead Ankara to put a foot in the water even if they don't want to dive in all the way to Damascus.
Turkey did issue an ultimatum to Assad back in the summer to stop killing his people. Perhaps the Turkish military was in no condition to make good on that threat.
But Turkey has had half a year to address any shortcomings they had then. I don't assume the summer ultimatum was empty.
