Turkey faces new migration risk from Idlib: CHP chair

Hande Fırat - ANKARA

Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu

Main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu said Turkey would face “further risks” in the case of a new migration flow from Syria’s Idlib province, underlining “Russia, the United States and Iran should be informed of these risks.”

Kılıçdaroğlu recommended that the Turkish government establish dialogue with Syrian regime forces in order to avoid an operation in an interview with daily Hürriyet on Sept. 7.

“Turkey should give up enmity with the [Bashar al] Assad regime and contact the Assad regime within a framework of certain principles for the solution of the problem in Idlib,” Kılıçdaroğlu said.

His comment came after Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan went to Tehran for a summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iranian President Hasan Rouhani over the latest situation in the rebel-held stronghold of Syria’s Idlib.

“Syria’s unity and integrity, especially its territorial integrity, are of utmost importance,” Kılıçdaroğlu said.

“Assad has won the civil war now. The U.S. and the world acknowledge this,” he said.

“For this reason, there is great benefit in contacting Assad for a solution in Idlib for the benefit of Turkey,” he said.

The Syrian army is preparing for a large-scale military offensive into the last rebel-held stronghold despite the international community’s concerns that it can lead to a humanitarian catastrophe.

“Assad’s use of any chemical weapon would mean harming himself. Because he is an actor who has won a war. He has won with the support of Russia, the U.S. and Iran. He has cleaned all radical forces to a large extent except for Idlib,” Kılıçdaroğlu said.

“The use of chemical weapons would be a humanitarian catastrophe,” he added.

Economy is not well handled

The CHP leader also criticized the current management of the economy by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), stating the authorities “are wasteful in public spending.”

“Contrary to what they reflect to the public, all state bureaucrats from the central to the local, are doing everything possible to be extravagant,” Kılıçdaroğlu said.

“For example, the Indonesian minister goes to a G-20 meeting in Argentina via a Turkish Airlines plane. Our minister goes to that meeting with a private jet,” he said.

“They are living in luxury from their reception menus to their private jets. But the reality is grim. I am not saying there is a heavy picture, I am saying there is a grim picture in Turkey,” the CHP leader said.