Turkish FM: Turkey faces al-Assad collaborators

ANKARA

Turkey opposes anyone collaborating with Bashar al-Assad’s regime, the Turkish foreign minister has said, referring to the Democratic Union Party (PYD), a Syrian Kurdish group known to be an affiliate of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

“Turkey is siding with Syrian Kurds, Syrian Arabs and Syrian Turkmens who are resisting against suppression. But those who collaborate with the oppressors, like the PYD, are on the other side. Our problem is not ethnicity but [providing] justice,” Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu said in Parliament.

Davutoğlu responded to severe criticisms from opposition parties who accused him of continuing his dreamy foreign policy. “No one believes in the existence of the zero-problem policy with neighbors,” Osman Korutürk, deputy leader of the Republican People’s Party (CHP), said. “You are misreading the flow of history. You are looking at the Middle East like an outside player. This is purely an Orientalist approach,” responded Davutoğlu. Criticizing CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu for his meretricious manner toward him, Davutoğlu said the main opposition leader personalized the issue and is continuing his insults.