Gaziantep: Turkey has angrily rejected demands that it open its border to tens of thousands of Syrian refugees driven from their homes by relentless Russian airstrikes, saying that to do so would amount to complicity in the Russian-backed offensive to drive rebels out of the province of Aleppo. The blunt acknowledgment that politics are part of the calculus in this latest humanitarian crisis in Syria underscores the dilemma confronting Turkey as it grapples with the prospect of a new refugee influx as well as the fear that hostile forces will overrun territory adjoining its border. It was a reminder, too, of the ways in which civilians have routinely become pawns in the...
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