Israel on Sunday implicitly confirmed it staged an air strike on Syria last week as President Bashar al-Assad accused the Jewish state of trying to destabilise his wartorn country.
Speaking to reporters in Munich were he attended the Security Conference, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak initially refrained from explicitly confirming that Israel staged the strike. "I cannot add anything to what you have read in the newspapers about what happened in Syria several days ago," he said.
But he told the conference that it was “another proof that when we say something we mean it.”
“We say that we don’t think that it should be allowable to bring advanced weapon systems into Lebanon, the Hezbollah from Syria, when Assad falls,” Barak said.
The Syrian military, meanwhile, said the target of Israeli jets was a scientific research center. The facility is in the area of Jamraya, northwest of Damascus.
Purported images of the targeted site, aired by Syrian state television on Saturday, showed destroyed cars, trucks and military vehicles.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan condemned the alleged Israeli strike and labelled it “state terrorism.”
“Those who have been treating Israel like a spoiled child should expect anything from them, at any time,” AFP quoted Erdogan as saying on Sunday. “As I say time and again, Israel has a mentality of waging state terrorism. Right now, there is no telling what it might do and where it might do it.”
The Turkish Prime Minister said that “we cannot regard a violation of air space as acceptable,” and added “what Israel does is completely against international law... it is beyond condemnation.”
Erdogan’s comments followed by a day Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu expressing disappointment that Syria has not taken action against Israel.
“Why didn’t Assad even throw a pebble when Israeli jets were flying over his palace and playing with the dignity of his country?” he was quoted as saying by the Turkish daily Hurriyet.
In response, Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said: "These statements can be described in many ways, and diplomatic is not one of them.”
On Saturday night, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was tasked to form a new coalition government, said this government would have to deal with weapons "being stockpiled near us and threatening our cities and civilians", in an apparent reference to the situation in Syria.