“Why shouldn’t we also cooperate on this with Russian Federation?”
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“We will cooperate with everybody who is fighting Islamic State”, Cavusoglu said, TASS reports.
“We can work with anyone in the fight against the Islamic State terrorists”. Mr. Cavusoglu stated that Turkey “will cooperate with everyone” fighting IS, indicating that Incirlik was open “for those who want to join the active fight against Daesh”.
Cavusoglu’s remarks on Sunday coincided with statements made by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan regarding new initiatives to resolve the Syrian crisis.
“Why not cooperate with Russian Federation as well on these terms?”
Moscow had broken off virtually all economic ties and banned tourists from visiting Turkish resorts after the downing of the plane, which resulted in one of the pilots being shot dead as he parachuted to the ground over Syria. “Daesh is our common enemy, and we need to fight this enemy”, Sputnik cited him as saying. “This is certainly a serious statement which has yet to be analysed from a military and political point of view”, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a conference call with journalists.
Currently, the United States, Germany, the UK, Qatar and Saudi Arabia are allowed to use the air base.
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While Turkey classifies Islamic State as a terrorist group, it was late to seal its borders to jihadists crossing from Turkey into Syria, focusing instead on Kurdish militants and the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as the primary threats to its national security.
