Erdogan made the remarks in a televised interview with Al-Jazeera late on Friday.
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“By hosting over two million Syrian and Iraqi brothers for four years, Turkey has saved the honour of humanity”, Erdogan said.
Erdoğan noted that 65 people had been killed by Russian Federation so far, “Civilians were killed, they’re ignoring the killing of civilians”.
Erdogan has vowed to discuss the situation with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, days before Russia officially announced it was beginning strikes on Islamic State (IS) targets that later allegedly turned out to include broader groups of the Syrian opposition. They say he is the biggest single cause of the extremism wracking the regime that has left hundreds of thousands dead and triggered the worst refugee crisis since World War II.
Russia’s airstrikes have prompted discussions in the Pentagon about whether the US should use military force to protect U.S.-trained and -equipped Syrian rebels if they come under fire by the Russians.
Moallem maintained that the military and financial support for opposition groups in Syria by Gulf and Western countries has strengthened anti-government terrorists. “Airstrikes are useless unless they are conducted in cooperation with the Syrian army, the only force in Syria that is combating terrorism”. The prime minister said that Russia’s military support for the Assad regime had been no secret, pointing to the Russian warships that had been seen sailing through the Bosphorus in Istanbul in recent weeks. Putin reiterated Russia’s commitment to coordinate its airstrikes “with the interested parties”, Peskov added.
The statement called on Moscow to “immediately cease” attacks on the Syrian opposition and civilians “and to focus its efforts on fighting ISIL”.
“It’s us who suffer in the face of the region’s problems”.
“Russia has always been involved in Syria“.
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The collapse of the government installed in Iraq during the American presence has seemed, in fact, to reduce the American interest in the wider Middle East, as its major ally, Sunni Saudi Arabia became more and more disturbed by President Obama’s determination to negotiate a deal with Iran concerning that country’s determination to establish nuclear weapons capabilities; and perhaps even more by the spectacle of a United States’ virtual coalition with Russian Federation in ensuring the success of that mission. On Thursday, reporters repeatedly asked Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov about which groups in Syria Russia aimed to eliminate, but Lavrov refused to offer specifics.
