SYRIA has massed armoured units near its border with Turkey, the semi official Anatolia news agency said yesterday. However, a Syrian official with the Arab League ruled out armed conflict.
Anatolia quoted Syrian and Turkish traders, who said they had seen Syrian armoured vehicles advancing towards the Turkish border as well as armoured units posted in several Syrian border areas.
The agency did not identify the location, but its report was dated from Nusayhin, near the border.
A spokesman for the Turkish army chief of staff in Ankara refused to comment on the reports and said the army headquarters was "very calm".
According to the London based Saudi daily Al Hayata Syria "moved around 40,000 soldiers to border areas with Turkey" after reports that Ankara was behind four bomb blasts in Syria. Travellers arriving in, Damascus from the Turkish Syrian border spoke of tension there as well as gunfire from the Turkish side which "seems to be on a permanent state of alert," AI Hayate said.
The deputy secretary general of the Arab League, Mr Muaffak alAllaf, said the league was watching developments with concern.
But he "ruled out the eruption of an armed conflict as all these (troop) movements were aimed at putting pressure on Syria for Israel's gain".
Anatolia, still quoting traders, said the bomb attacks in Syria were carried out by an organisation called the Muslim Brotherhood. The agency added there had been many explosions in the past week in the Syrian provinces along the 500 mile Turkish Syrian border, but gave no details of casualties.
The Syrian authorities are said to have made arrests within the Turkic community Syrians of Turkish origin who are suspected of carrying out the attacks.
The US State Department has said that several blasts took place in Syria in May. Damascus dismissed the reports, which it said had been traced to Turkish journalists amid cool ties between the two countries over an Israeli Turkish military accord.
Many Arab governments have reacted angrily to the accord which allows Israeli air force pilots to train in Turkish airspace.
The Syrian ambassador to Iran told an Iranian newspaper yesterday that Tehran and Damascus were considering co-ordinated action against the accord.