© Reuters. Destroyed buildings are seen at night after a deadly earthquake in Antakya, Turkey, February 19, 2023. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov
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By Henriette Chacar, Ali Kucukgocmen and Humeyra Pamuk
ANTAKYA, Turkey (Reuters) – Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Turkey on Monday the United States would help “for as long as it is needed” following deadly earthquakes two weeks ago, as Turkish authorities demolished large-scale damaged buildings.
Washington sent a search-and-rescue team to Turkey, along with medical supplies, concrete-breaking machinery and additional humanitarian aid funds that also cover Syria.
Ties between NATO allies have been strained over issues including Ankara’s purchase of Russian missile defense systems in 2019, NATO expansion and US support for Kurdish fighters in northeastern Russia. Syria, which Ankara considers terrorists.
“The United States and Turkey do not agree on all issues, but it is a partnership that has withstood… challenges,” Blinken said at a joint news conference with Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu in Ankara.
Total US humanitarian assistance to support the earthquake response in Turkey and Syria has reached $185 million, the US State Department said.
Cavusoglu said that he and Blinken discussed a planned $20 billion purchase of F-16 fighter jets from the US, and that Turkey would like the US administration to send formal notification of the possible sale. of F-16 to Congress.
On Monday, the rescue work ended two weeks after the February 6 earthquakes that killed more than 46,000 people in southern Turkey and northwestern Syria.
Turkey’s Emergency and Disaster Management Authority (AFAD) said nearly 13,000 excavators, cranes, trucks and other industrial vehicles were dispatched to the quake zone.
The death toll in Turkey had risen to 41,156, AFAD said, and was expected to rise further, with some 385,000 apartments in the country known to have been destroyed or badly damaged and many people still missing.
Among the survivors of the earthquakes are some 356,000 pregnant women who urgently need access to reproductive health services, the UN agency for sexual and reproductive health (UNFPA) said over the weekend.
The women include 226,000 in Turkey and 130,000 in Syria, some 38,800 of whom will give birth next month.
He said many of the women are sheltering in camps or living in sub-zero temperatures, struggling to get food or clean water.
HELP SYRIA
In Syria, already torn apart by more than a decade of civil war, most of the deaths have been in the northwest. The area is controlled by insurgents who are at war with forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad, complicating efforts to get aid to the people.
The medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said a convoy of 14 of its trucks entered northwestern Syria from Turkey on Sunday to help earthquake rescue operations, as concerns grew over lack of access to the war-torn area.
The World Food Program (WFP) has also been pressing authorities in that region to stop blocking access to aid from Syrian government-controlled areas as it seeks to help hundreds of thousands of people affected by the earthquakes. .
As of Monday morning, 197 truckloads of UN humanitarian aid had entered northwestern Syria through two border crossings, a spokesman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said.
Since Wednesday, thousands of Syrian refugees in Turkey have returned to their homes in northwestern Syria to contact relatives affected by the devastation.
At the Turkish border at Cilvegozu, hundreds of Syrians lined up since early Monday morning to cross. Mustafa Hannan, who left his wife pregnant with him and his 3-year-old son at 7:30 am, said he saw about 350 people waiting.
The 27-year-old auto electrician said his family would leave for a few months after their house in Antakya collapsed, taking up authorities’ promise to allow them to spend up to six months in Syria without missing a chance to return to Turkey.
“I am concerned that they will not be allowed to return,” he said. “We’ve already been cut off from our nation. Are we going to be cut off from our families now too? If I rebuild here but they can’t come back, I’ll lose my life.”