UN Security Council should listen to Turkey: President Gül

ANKARA

Gül said Turkey, as a neighbor of Syria, welcomed the deal brokered by the U.S. and Russia in order to destroy the country’s nearly 1,000-ton stockpile of chemical weapons. DHA Photo

President Abdullah Gül has called on the United Nations Security Council to give an ear to the concerns of Turkey as the country most affected by the ongoing civil war in neighboring Syria as he welcomed the U.S.-Russia deal on the elimination of chemical weapons in the country.

“While, on the one hand, serious and determined works should be carried out to ultimately cleanse Syria of chemical weapons; there is, on the other hand, a need for strong political determination for resolving the larger problem in Syria,” President Gül told reporters today.

Gül said Turkey, as a neighbor of Syria, welcomed the deal brokered by the U.S. and Russia in order to destroy the country’s nearly 1,000-ton stockpile of chemical weapons. “It will be Turkey who will be happiest at the removal of these weapons from Syria. That’s why this deal should be supported and we are in fact supporting it,” Gül stressed, but added that the issue of chemical weapons was just one aspect of the problem in Syria.

“There is a second phase of the issue: If chemical weapons had not been wielded, then would there be no problem in Syria?” he asked, arguing that the world should not adopt such a position regarding Syria. Upon a question about whether the U.N. Security Council could agree on a resolution in light of the chemical weapons’ deal, Gül said it was not possible to from today as resolutions could only be produced following though negotiations and discussions by the permanent members of the Security Council. Recalling that Turkey was not a member of the U.N. Security Council, Gül called on the permanent and temporary members to listen to Turkey as a neighboring country who has been most affected of the civil war in Syria.

President Gül will represent Turkey at the U.N. General Assembly next week where he will address member countries and hold bilateral talks with his counterparts from various countries. The U.N. General Assembly will witness important meetings on Syria where a number of countries will hold a specific reunion to discuss the developments in this country following the chemical deal. John Kerry and Sergei Lavrov, foreign ministers of the U.S. and Russia, will meet on Sept. 28 in New York to move forward with the agreement they brokered in Geneva.