Tensions with Turkey simmer as Assad retains old guard

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Photo/FILE

Turkey on Saturday played down the loss of a warplane to Syrian air defences as President Bashar al-Assad announced a new government with key posts unchanged and at least 30 people were killed nationwide.

NATO member Ankara said early on Saturday one of its jets may have violated Syrian airspace, after Damascus confirmed shooting down the F-4 Phantom, in comments seen as a bid to cool the latest spat between the former allies.

"An unidentified aerial target violated Syrian airspace, coming from the west at a very low altitude and at high speed over territorial waters," a Syrian military spokesman told the official SANA news agency.

Anti-aircraft batteries hit the plane about a kilometre from the coast and it crashed some 10 kilometres (six miles) off Latakia province, he added.

Turkish President Abdullah Gul said it was not unusual for warplanes flying at high speed to cross maritime borders, stressing that such actions were not "ill-intentioned."

Naval forces from both nations were searching for the two missing crew.

Key Turkish ministers were meeting to discuss future steps, a foreign ministry diplomat told AFP, after Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Ankara "will announce its final position and take necessary steps with determination after the incident is entirely clarified."

Meanwhile, Assad announced the formation of a new government with the key foreign, defence and interior ministry portfolios unchanged, as violence continued to rage across the country.

The announcement came less than two months after controversial parliamentary elections boycotted by the opposition.

"President Bashar al-Assad has issued Decree 210 forming a new government under Prime Minister Dr Riad Hijab," state television said.

Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem will remain in his post, as will the defence and interior ministers, Daoud Rajha and Mohammad al-Shaar.

Rajha, in the post since August, was among those sanctioned by the United States for his role in the crackdown on Syrian protesters.

The new cabinet of 34 assumes power amid an intensification of repression and clashes, which last week led to the the halt of the United Nations observer mission.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 30 people, including 28 civilians, were killed by security forces across Syria on Saturday, as the army pressed its campaign against rebel strongholds.

On Friday, at least 116 people, among them 69 civilians, 31 members of pro-regime forces and six rebels, died nationwide.

Britain's Guardian newspaper reported on Saturday that Saudi Arabia was set to pay the salaries of the rebel Free Syrian Army to encourage mass defections from Assad's forces.

Turkey-Syria relations were already strained by Erdogan's outspoken condemnation of the Assad's government's bloody crackdown that rights activists say has killed more than 15,000 people since March last year.

The downing of the F-4 is the most serious incident between the two countries since then, but in Ankara Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc downplayed the tensions.

"We should be calm ... Yes, we accept this is a critical matter but we don't have clear information," he told Anatolia news agency, adding that the results of the ongoing investigation would be publicised "as soon as possible."

Turkey has now taken in more than 30,000 refugees from the Syria unrest, according to foreign ministry figures, and is also playing host to army defectors including 12 generals.

Article 5 of the NATO treaty stipulates that an attack on one member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation is considered an attack on all members of the alliance.

Turkey had already considered invoking the NATO article after stray bullets fired on the Syrian side of the border killed two Syrians on Turkish soil in April.

"Assad is playing with fire," headlined Turkey's mass-circulation daily Hurriyet, while Vatan newspaper said: "They (Syria) will pay the price."

In Baghdad, Iraq's Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari warned of the danger that the Syrian crisis might spill over.

"Our main concern is the spillover of the crisis... into neighbouring countries, and no country is immune from this spillover because of the composition of the societies... the connections, the sectarian ethnic dimensions," he told reporters.