Ahmet Davutoğlu told on Friday that Kurds in Iraq and Syria are not a threat to Turkey merely underlined that Ankara wouldn’t tolerate what he addressed “terrorist organization like the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) or al-Qaeda to build a presence in Syria near the Turkish borderline.
On Thursday Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan told that Turkey could play against a “terrorist” organization in northern Syria if it perceived it as a threat — a discouraging to the Kurdish groups running the region. Besides the PKK, Islamist groups are also reportedly dynamic along the Turkish-Syrian borderline. Unofficial reports have stated groups associated with al-Qaeda are in charge of at least one borderline gate, Bab al-Hawa. Syrian private security force lost control of 3 borderline crosses last week.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has also stated that militants who have captured control of posts on Syria’s borderline with Turkey might be friends of al-Qaeda, stating doubt over claims that border gates seized from government forces on the Syrian side of the frontier had been captured by the opposition Free Syrian Army (FSA).
“According to some information, these checkpoints were captured not by the Free Syrian Army at all — whatever one thinks of it — but by groups right away associated with al-Qaeda,” Lavrov stated on Wednesday.
Davutoğlu didn’t define what measures Turkey could take to preclude activities by such groups along its 911-kilometer (566-mile) frontier with Syria being in the throes of a 16-month crackdown on a popular uprising that has laid claim 17,000 lives.
Turkish statements in response to the emergence of a Kurdish rule in northern Syria have aroused concerns that tensions might intensify between Turkey and the Kurds again after a forceful melioration in Ankara’s linkups with the Iraqi Kurds running an independent region in Iraq’s north.
But Davutoğlu, who is anticipated to visit Iraqi Kurdistan in the coming days to talk about the new situation in Syria’s north, essayed to calm tensions, telling Turkey didn’t believe Kurds a threat. “We do not want our Kurdish brothers in Iraq and Syria to suffer. We have been supporting that they ought to be able to enjoy their most basic rights from the very beginning,” he told.
The foreign minister also played down concerns over a PKK takeover of northern Syria, telling it’s normal that some “self-seekers and provocateurs” emerge at times of crisis like this. “They’ve no concern in bringing democracy to Syria. They’ve no aims concerning [the progress of rights of] our Kurdish brothers,” he stated.
He also criticized the media portrayal of developments in the Kurdish areas of Syria, telling awes about a Kurdish region in Syria were “unsupported.” Davutoğlu also told the world community was sure that the regime of President Bashar al-Assad is bound to collapse. “We want the transition in Syria to be accomplished as soon as possible,” he stated.
