Turkish Prime Minister has vowed Ankara would play a “more active” role in the next six months in efforts to end the five-year Syrian crisis.
Binali Yildirim said in a news briefing on Saturday that Ankara would step up efforts to reduce “instability” in the region.
“We say the bloodshed needs to stop. Babies, children, innocent people should not die. That’s why Turkey will be more active in trying to stop the danger getting worse in the next six months, compared with before,”
Yildirim told foreign reporters in Istanbul.
Yildirim said that Bashar al-Assad, the current Syrian President and the root cause of Syrian crisis, can remain temporarily during a transition period as “he is one of the actors today no matter whether we like it or not,” but the he stressed that Assad has “no role to play in Syria’s future”.
“We believe that the Kurdish militias, ISIS and Assad should not be in the future of Syria,” he added.
Turkey does not want the Kurds to consolidate any territorial gains that could help the PKK.
“In the six months ahead of us, we shall be playing a more active role,” Mr Yildirim said. “It means not allowing Syria to be divided along ethnic lines.”
Turkish politicians says that the Kurdish militias in Syrian are arms for the PKK group in Turkey, which is considered globally a terrorist group, and accuses them for many terror attacks in Turkey.
However, the Kurdish militias are backed by US, as they cooperate on what they call “anti-ISIS operations”.
Turkey has also suffered from terror attacks planned by ISIS and played an active role in bombing the militants areas and cuuting their supply routes.
Yildirim said instead Turkey, Iran, Russia and the United States must work toward a solution in Syria.
“That is our objective. We are not pessimistic. We have even left it late. Therefore, as Turkey, we will work more because the instability there pains us.”
