Main opposition CHP disapproves US-led strikes on Syria: Party leader

Serkan Demirtaş - HATAY

Turkey’s main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) has said it disapproved military strikes carried out by United States-led Western powers on Syria without having solid evidence that a chemical weapons attack in a Damascus suburb was carried out by the Syrian regime, urging the Turkish government to follow a cautious policy in the Middle East. 

“We are against the use of chemical weapons. But there are suspicions on the use of these weapons. An expert team from the U.N. should inspect, and they can perfectly figure out which agent was used and by which country it was produced,” CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu said, addressing local businessmen in the Hatay province on the Syrian border on April 14.

“What is necessary should be done, I have no objection. But without doing all these inspections, I never find an act of war right that would push the region into a more critical process,” he said.

Accusing the United States and Russia of engaging in a show of force amid a struggle for the control of Syrian natural gas and oil reserves, Kılıçdaroğlu underlined the need for the withdrawal of “imperial forces” from the region.

On April 14, the United States, Britain and France carried out a wave of strikes against the Bashar al-Assad regime, a week after a suspected deadly gas attack on the rebel-held Damascus suburb of Douma.