Claims
that Turkish forces are in Syria to end Assad's rule
Recep
Tayyip Erdogan has said that the Turkish Army entered Syria to end
the rule of President Bashar Assad, whom he accused of terrorism and
causing the deaths of thousands.
“We
entered [Syria] to end the rule of the tyrant al-Assad who terrorizes
with state terror. [We didn’t enter] for any other reason,”
the Turkish president said at the first Inter-Parliamentary Jerusalem
Platform Symposium in Istanbul, as quoted by Hurriyet daily.
Erdogan
said that Turkey has no territorial claims in Syria, but instead
wants to hand over power to the Syrian population, adding that Ankara
is seeking to restore “justice.”
“Why
did we enter? We do not have an eye on Syrian soil. The issue is to
provide lands to their real owners. That is to say we are there for
the establishment of justice,” he said.
He
went on to say that “in his estimation” almost 1 million people
have died in the conflict in Syria, although no monitoring group has
provided any similar figures. The latest UN estimate stands at
400,000 people killed in the five-year civil war.
Erdogan
said that Turkey could not “endure” the unending killing of
civilians and “had to enter Syria together with the Free Syrian
Army.”
The
Turkish leader also accused the UN of inability to influence the
situation in Syria and said that the organization is ineffective in
its current state. “The world is bigger than five,” he
said, referring to the number of permanent members on the UN Security
Council, as reported by Hurriyet.
Turkish
troops entered Syria on August 24, launching operation Euphrates
Shield. Turkey deployed ground troops and air power to northern parts
of its neighboring country, with the stated goal of retaking areas
held by Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL).
However,
many observers have said that Ankara aims to suppress Kurdish forces
in Syria and prevent them from connecting three de facto autonomous
Kurdish areas into one enclave south of the Turkish border.
In
October, Turkey’s air forces killed between 160 and 200 fighters of
the Kurdish YPG militia group in 26 airstrikes conducted in just one
night. The Turkish military campaign in Syria has also led to
increasingly strained relations with Assad’s government.
Ankara
was forced to halt air support for its ground incursion into Syria on
October 22, after Damascus vowed to shoot down Turkish Air Force
planes in Syrian skies, accusing Turkey of violating its national
sovereignty. Turkey in turn accused the Syrian Army of attacking FSA
fighters in the northern Aleppo province.
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