Syrian rebels and Damascus “must reconcile”, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said today, repeating a call he made last week that sparked anti-Turkish protests in rebel-held areas of Syria.
“The regime and the opposition must reconcile. That’s what I said (…) We believe that a reconciliation is necessary for a sustainable peace in Syria,” Cavusoglu said during a joint press conference with his Latvian counterpart Edgars Rinkevics.
The Turkish minister had already called last Thursday for “the reconciliation of the opposition and the regime in Syria” after eleven years of war. The next day, thousands of Syrians demonstrated in the rebel-held areas denouncing Cavusoglu’s statements.
“I used the word reconciliation (and not peace)”, he underlined today, stressing that his words were “falsified”.
Furthermore, the Turkish minister pointed out that his statements do not signal any change in Turkish positions towards Syria.
Since the start of the war in Syria in 2011, Ankara, which has deployed troops along the border with its neighboring country, has strongly opposed the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and supported rebel groups.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had described the Assad regime as “murderous” in May.
Cavusoglu’s remarks came shortly after Erdogan’s August 5 meeting with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, an ally of Damascus who has been pushing for normalization of Turkish-Syrian relations.
SOURCE: AMPE
Source: Capital
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