Are Turkish troops trapped at Syrian tomb?
Turkish troops guarding the Tomb of Suleiman Shah, a Turkish enclave in Syria, are facing increased risks as Ankara refuses to evacuate them.
At the moment, a critical debate is raging in Turkey about a Turkish Special Forces (TSF) detachment posted about 20 miles inside Syria to guard the Tomb of Suleiman Shah, an extraterritorial Turkish enclave. The debate has been fanned by the approaching parliamentary debate to authorize sending Turkish troops to Iraq and Syria.
Actually, the tomb has been on the agenda since March, when then-Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu (now prime minister) referred to the escalating civil war in Syria and declared that Turkey wouldn’t hesitate to take any measure needed for the security of the tomb that was marked as Turkish territory by the 1921 Turkey-France border accord.
