Kılıçdaroğlu slams FM on foreign policy

ANKARA - Anatolia News Agency

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Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu is the most helpless foreign minister Turkey has ever had, Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu said Aug. 3.

“I am saying [he is] the most helpless foreign minister because his starting vision was to have ‘zero problems’ with neighbors, but his ending point has been contention with everyone,” Kılıçdaroğlu said in an interview with private broadcaster NTV.

The CHP leader also criticized Turkish foreign policy, saying the country had lost considerable influence in the Middle East. “The discourse of Davutoğlu and [Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip] Erdoğan does not carry weight in the Middle East anymore,” Kılıçdaroğlu said. 

Ankara’s Syria policy is seriously flawed, Kılıçdaroğlu said. “If a country builds its foreign policy around another country’s interests, this is a problem.”

“On what issue has Davutoğlu been successful?” Kılıçdaroğlu asked. “On which foreign policy issues has he succeeded? On Syria? On Iraq or Iran? On Kürecik, Malatya [where NATO has a radar station]? About Greek Cyprus? [Turkish foreign policy] is a total failure and all of these failures have been undersigned by Davutoğlu,” he said.