Nationalist leader welcomes Moscow cease-fire deal

ANKARA

DHA Photo

Devlet Bahçeli, the leader of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), welcomed the March 5 cease-fire deal for Idlib between Russia and Turkey but warned that Ankara should hit back if the regime violates the truce.

“Turkey was not embarrassed in Moscow. The issue that we need to focus on here is the enigma of whether [Syrian leader Bashar al-] Assad will use the weapon at the first opportunity. If Assad makes a mistake, he must pay for it,” Bahçeli said, speaking at his parliament group meeting on March 10.

If the cease-fire is abided by parties, that will be good, but if not, Turkey shall continue to struggle against Assad, he said.

Last week, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Russian President Vladimir Putin met in Moscow, where the two sides agreed to a new cease-fire for Syria’s northwestern Idlib province.

He also slammed Russian state TV broadcasts of a video allegedly showing Turkey’s president being kept waiting by his Russian counterpart before a meeting last week.

“If Russia’s administration intentionally let this be recorded and then let it be broadcast, this is undoubtedly insolence, misbehavior, and disrespect,” Bahçeli stated.

In the video broadcast by Russian state TV, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his delegation are shown allegedly kept waiting around two minutes before meeting with President Vladimir Putin in Moscow. Bahçeli called on Moscow to account for the incident and make amendments. “We hope that the video was not intentionally prepared. An insult to the Turkish president is an insult to us all,” he said.