The prime minister also said that Turkey would aim to become more of a regional player with regard to Syria in the next six months.
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Ayham Kamel, a Middle East analyst with the Eurasia Group consultancy, said Turkey’s position on Assad is becoming significantly more flexible as Russian Federation plays a more active role, and that the Syrian government’s recent and unprecedented bombing of US -backed Kurdish positions sought to show Ankara that Assad is the only serious partner who can guarantee that Syria’s Kurds remain contained.
But the premier stressed that Assad has no role to play in Syria’s future. “Certainly not”, Yildirim said.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but Erdogan blamed the Islamic State.
“There may be talks (with Assad) for the transition”. “The United States knows and Russian Federation knows that Assad does not appear to be someone who can bring (the people) together”.
Amberin Zaman, a Bengali-Turkish journalist and public policy scholar at The Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, DC, suggests that a potential thaw could have been triggered by the fact that both Ankara and Damascus oppose the creation of a Kurdish independent entity in northern Syria.
“We believe that the PKK, Daesh and Assad should not be in the future of Syria”, he added, referring to the Syrian Kurds and the Islamic State group in the war-torn country. “It means not allowing Syria to be divided along ethnic lines. ensuring that its government is not based on ethnic (divisions)”.
The United States has used the Incirlik base in the southern province of Adana as a highly convenient launch pad for bombing raids against Islamic State (IS) jihadists in Syria since 2015.
The escalation prompted the U.S.to scramble jets to protect International Coalition forces embedded with the Kurds.
A Turkish security official said on Monday that they were investigating the possibility that adult fighters could have placed the explosives on the child without his or her knowledge, and detonated the device remotely, or that a mentally disabled child was duped into carrying the device.
On Friday Syrian Kurdish authorities evacuated thousands of civilians from Kurdish areas of Hasaka following Syrian government air strikes, the Kurdish YPG militia said.
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“We appreciate Kurdish forces’ help in the fight against terrorists previous year, when 500 Kurdish soldiers were killed and 900 more wounded”.
