Erdogan: Assad a terrorist, can’t have peace talks with him
TUNIS: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday called Syrian President Bashar al-Assad a terrorist and said it was impossible for
Syrian peace efforts to continue with him.
Syria’s Foreign Ministry responded by accusing Erdogan of supporting terrorist groups fighting Assad’s government.
T u r k e y h a s d emanded the removal of Assad from power and backed rebels fighting to overthrow him, but it has toned down its demands since it started working with Assad’s allies, Russia and Iran, for a political resolution.
“Assad is definitely a terrorist who has carried out state terrorism,” Erdogan told a televised news conference with his Tunisian counterpart Beji Caid Essebsi here.
“It is impossible to continue with Assad. How can we embrace the future with a Syrian president who has killed close to a million of his citizens?” he said, in some of his harshest comments for weeks.
Though Turkey has long demanded Assad’s removal, it is now more focused on the threat from Islamist militants and Kurdish fighters it considers allies of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, who it said had formed a “terror corridor” on its southern border.
Turkey said the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia, which Ankara views as an extension of the outlawed PKK, which has fought an insurgency in southeast Turkey since the 1980s, cannot be invited to Syrian peace talks in the Kazakh capital Astana. Reuters