October 5, 2012

Ankara’s military forces have struck back after a mortar bomb fired from Syria hit a farm in the Turkish province of Hatay, reports Reuters quoting the state news agency.

No deaths or injuries have so far been reported.

According to Turkish media, a mortar shell fell near the town of Altinozu, some 50 meters away from the Syria border on Friday afternoon. The Turkish army immediately “fired back at targets” within Syria.

The exchange of fire between the two countries follows a similar incident on Wednesday, which left five people dead and eight others wounded.Turkey's artillery pounded targets inside Syria for twelve hours in retaliation for the killings.

On Thursday, Turkey’s parliament also authorized cross-border military operations into Syria "when necessary."

The UN Security Council has urged Ankara and Damascus to exercise restraint. But the Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan later said his country was “not far” from war with its Arab neighbor.

"We are not interested in war, but we're not far from it either," Erdogan declared Friday. "Those who attempt to test Turkey's deterrence, its decisiveness, its capacity, I say here they are making a fatal mistake."

Russia says it has received assurances from Damascus that Wednesday's strike on Turkey was a tragic accident. But Erdogan dismissed that pointing out this was not the first time Syrian mortar rounds had reached Turkey. Previously, bombs had been hitting non-residential areas, said the PM, so Turkey only filed protests. The PM stressed that the deaths of two women and three children could not have been handled the same way.

http://rt.com/news/turkey-return-fire-syria-771/print/