Turkish PM mentions Syrians’ right to defense

ISTANBUL

Syrian people’s legitimate demands must be met, right here, right now, Erdoğan says.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has called on the international community to take a resolute stance to stop the bloodshed in Syria, and said that the Syrian people’s right to self defense should be supported if the U.N. Security Council fails to make a decision.

“If the Security Council avoids assuming this historic responsibility then there will be no other choice for the international community but to support the Syrian people’s right to self defense. The legitimate demands of the Syrian people must be met, right here, right now,” Erdoğan said, speaking to foreign ministers assembled for the Friends of Syria summit held in Istanbul yesterday. “The regime continues spewing out death,” he said. Erdoğan said Turkey favors implementing a peace plan by U.N.-Arab League Joint Envoy Kofi Annan to yield a positive outcome, but also warned that the al-Assad regime’s poor performance in honoring its past pledges scarcely leaves room to hope that Damascus would not use the Annan plan to buy more time to continue its violent oppression of the opposition.

‘Regime never kept promises’

“The Syrian regime should not be allowed to manipulate this plan to gain time. This regime has never kept its promises. Inevitably the Security Council will have to assume responsibility and say ‘stop’ to the massacre in Syria if the Syrian regime fails to cooperate,” he said. “We are having serious difficulties collecting information about the fate of the two Turkish journalists who are lost in Syria,” he said. Erdoğan said there is an urgent need to devise functional ways to provide uninterrupted humanitarian aid to the Syrian people, adding that any peace initiative that lacks effective monitoring mechanisms [...] would encourage the Syrian regime to commit more violence. “The message we give today should be clear: We will not support any plan that would prolong the regime’s hold on power,” Erdoğan said. Erdoğan also said that Turkey has faith in the SNC.