Earlier Wednesday, the upper house of Russia’s parliament voted unanimously to give President Vladimir Putin the authority to deploy the country’s armed forces in Syria, followed by the country’s first airstrikes against positions associated with the Daesh militant group. “I will express my sadness over this matter”, said Erdogan in a transcript of the interview published by the official Anatolia news agency.
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It is noteworthy that such debate reached even U.S. Presidential Race 2016 hopefuls, a while ago, US communities were outraged at Donald Trump, who agreed with a question that indicated Muslims as a problem in the United States, and Ben Carson when he said that he would not advocate putting a Muslim in charge of the nation.
“We as a great power cannot but take part in fighting this great evil”, Matvienko said, adding that the Soviet Union and Syria signed a security cooperation agreement in 1980 that guarantees that Moscow would help Damascus if asked. With Russian Federation now engaged in air strikes in Syria, and just one month from a make or break re-election in Turkey which the AKP are far from certain to win, Davutoglu clearly needs all the worldwide approval for “moderation” he can get. “I’m troubled by what is happening now”.
Turkey has welcomed Syrian refugees since the beginning of the civil war in March 2011 and is now hosting around two million people under temporary protection regulations. Russian Federation doesn’t have a border with Syria.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on 1 October that Syrian people shouldn’t have to choose between President Bashar al-Assad’s regime and “terrorist organisations”, like the Islamic State (Isis) group.
Putin appears to be betting that decisive action to aid Assad will improve Russia’s position at future talks on a political settlement, safeguard its control of the Tartus naval base and limit the influence of regional rivals like North Atlantic Treaty Organisation member Turkey.
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“We do not have a right to leave our brothers to die in the Mediterranean or expose them to cruelty along borders or at train stations as a few European countries do”, Erdogan said.
