A convoy of about 30 armed forces vehicles, including trucks charged with projectile batteries, came in Turkey’s coastal town of İskenderun and deployed near the the Syrian borderline fifty km (thirty miles) away, Turkish agencies stated.
Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdoğan declared after Syrian air defences downed a Turkish military plane last Fri he would come forward security there.
Turkish television film displayed the column moving off on Wednesday, escorted by police cars, along a constrict main road leading out of the principal port of Turkey’s Hatay province. It included launchers on transporters, anti-aircraft weapon and military ambulances.
Erdoğan told any military element moving towards the Turkish borderline and viewed as endangering would be announced a armed forces target. The prevalence of air defense arms in the convoy indicated Turkey was steeling itself against any possible approaching by Syrian helicopters or military plane.
State-run Anatolia news agency stated armoured military vehicles were being carried to military facilities in Sanliurfa, in the middle of Turkey’s borderline with Syria and Hatay, a panhandle province that juts down into Syria.
It stated many military vehicles had moved one by one to a military garrison in the border town of Reyhanli in Hatay.
There have been no details given of new rules of engagement issued to troops after the downing of the military plane which Turkey tells was in international air space.
The Hatay region is sheltering over 33,000 refugees in addition to elements of the Free Syrian Army.
“I can affirm there are military personnel being deployed along the borderline in Hatay province. Turkey is taking cautions after its jet was downed,” a Turkish official stated Reuters on circumstance of anonymity.
He told he didn’t know how many military personnel or vehicles were being acted but told they were being based in the Yayladagi, Altinozu and Reyhanli border areas of Turkey’s southern Hatay province. He told antiaircrafts were being based along the borderline.
He could not affirm media reports of troop movements further east along the border in the Turkish provinces of Gaziantep and Şanlıurfa. READ MORE
