Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said on Saturday that his country will play a more active role in helping address the Syrian crisis within the next six months.
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Hundreds of Syrian rebels are preparing to launch an operation to capture a town held by Islamic State at the border with Turkey, a senior Syrian rebel said on Sunday, a move that would frustrate Kurdish hopes to expand further in that area.
Turkey’s decision to carry out military operations in Syria has definitely been welcomed by Tehran and Moscow, Political Science Professor at University of Tehran Ahmad Naqibzadeh believes.
“We may sit and talk (with him) for the transition”.
The U.S. Justice Department will send a team to Turkey in coming days to pursue allegations by the Turkish government of criminal activity by Gulen, an administration official said Friday. We have even left it late. “As Turkey, we will work more because the instability there pains us”.
Yildirim said Saturday the European Union had still to deliver funds to help Turkey improve conditions for some 3 million Syrian refugees in Turkey and grant Turkish citizens visa-free travel.
“This is a new situation… It is clear that the [Syrian] regime has understood the structure Kurds are trying to form in the north [of Syria] has started to become a threat”, he added, referring to the Syrian Kurds’ bid to join up regions under their control.
Turkey is opposed to Syria’s division along ethnic lines, and Mr Yildirim said all groups including Arabs, Kurds and Alawites should be represented in any new government.
Yildirim also denied news reports that Russian Federation was seeking to use Turkey’s southern air base of Incirlik for its operations in Syria. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group reported 26 people had been killed in the fighting, among them 10 children and four women. The base is now being used by the USA -led coalition against ISIS.
“I think they don’t need it because they have two bases in Syria”, he added, saying the news on the issue was “false”.
After the July 15 failed putsch in Turkey by a rogue military faction aiming to oust Erdogan from power, Egypt’s presidency remained mum.
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Turkey has jailed more than 20,000 suspects and removed nearly 80,000 people from public duty after the coup attempt, Yildirim said on August 17.
