Turkey’s Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu on Monday ruled out creating a processing centre for thousands of mostly Syrian refugees trying to enter Europe from Turkish territory, calling instead for them to be hosted in “safe zones” inside Syria. The Safe Zone concept recognizes that the vast majority of Syrians want to remain in Syria or return to Syria if it is free of the tyranny of Assad and the terror of ISIL. He has committed crimes against humanity.
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“What we need to do is to have solidarity with all countries including Russian Federation to make a transition in Syria”.
Numerous Syrian refugees pouring into Europe have been living in Turkey for months, even years.
“We are ready to cooperate with any country to fight ISIS”, Davutoglu told reporters at United Nations headquarters using another acronym for IS.
Russian Federation is a staunch ally of Assad. Later it was seen as a Turkish or neighboring countries’ crisis.
Moscow has put Washington on the back foot by dispatching troops and aircraft to the war-torn country and pushing reluctant world leaders to admit that Assad could cling to power.
During the meeting, which was also attended by Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Ali Babacan, Finance Minister Mehmet Simsek, Turkey’s Ambassador to the U.S. Serdar Kilic, and Turkey’s Consul-General in New York Ertan Yalcin, Davutoglu urged the crowd to stand united on issues related to Turkey’s interests, and to “defend shared humanitarian values shoulder to shoulder, together with other Muslim Americans and those who are against racism”.
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He said that by bombing moderate Syrian opposition forces, the Assad regime had helped the rise of ISIS, particularly in the Raqqa region. “There is no terrorist group, including Daesh, al Nusra [Front] or others that is exclusively formed by foreign fighters”, he said. Turkey’s population has grown by more than 3 million since 2010, with an approximate growth of 1.2 percent over the last five years. That should be the future of Syria.
