Turkey Plans Military Intervention in Syria, Bans YouTube for Leaked Reporting

Turkey is threatening military intervention in Syria. A leaked recording proves it. In response, an angry Turkish Government Banned YouTube.

The Foreign Ministry called the leak a “despicable attack” on national security, in a statement e-mailed from Ankara yesterday. It said the meeting, attended by Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, the head of national intelligence and other military and diplomatic officials, was held to discuss how to respond to threats by Islamist militants against an enclave of Turkish territory inside Syria. Some sections of the tape were “doctored,” the ministry said.

Turkey’s telecommunications authority said it has blocked access to YouTube, where the recording was posted. The government imposed a temporary ban on news about the recording, according to Turkey’s broadcasting watchdog.

The recording included Davutoglu discussing an attack against Islamist militants who have threatened the tomb of Suleyman Shah, a monument that’s on Turkish territory inside Syria under international agreements. It comes three days before local elections, where Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is seeking a victory that he says will lay to rest allegations of corruption that surfaced in earlier Internet leaks.

Erdogan attacked the leak of the recording at an election rally in Diyarbakir, calling it “unethical, sordid and contemptible.” He vowed to bring the perpetrators to justice, saying: “We’ll go after them in their lairs.”

The leaked tape is the latest in a slew of recordings posted anonymously on the Internet since December, some of them allegedly from a police investigation, which have embroiled Erdogan in a corruption scandal and led to the departure of four cabinet ministers.