Posted on 03/16/2015 5:00:11 AM PDT by ksm1
Turkey has criticised United States Secretary of State John Kerry for suggesting that negotiations would have to be opened with President Bashar al-Assad to end the conflict in Syria.
Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told the state-run Anatolia news agency on Monday that all Syria's current problems, on the fourth anniversary of the start of the uprising in March 2011, were caused by Assad’s government.
"What is there to be negotiated with Assad?" Cavusoglu was quoted as saying at the end of his visit to Cambodia.
"You are going to have what [kind of] negotiations with a regime that has killed over 200,000 people and has used chemical weapons?" he asked. "Up until now, what result has been reached [with the regime] through negotiations?"
He said all parties needed to work for a political "transformation" in Syria.
The Syrian government has repeatedly been accused of using chemical weapons, even after a 2013 international agreement for its chemical arsenal to be moved out of the country and destroyed.
Kerry over the weekend conceded that "we have to negotiate in the end" with Assad.
But State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said later that Kerry, in the interview with CBS, was not specifically referring to Assad. She reiterated that Washington would never negotiate with the Syrian leader.
Harf added: "By necessity, there has always been a need for representatives of the Assad regime to be a part of this process. It has never been and would not be Assad who would negotiate - and the Secretary was not saying that today."
Strained relations
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has pressed for the exit of Assad as the key for any solution to end the violence in Syria.
With strains growing between Washington and Ankara, US officials have also been disappointed by what they call Turkey's limited support for the US-led campaign against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group.
Ankara has so far declined to give the US permission to use the Incirlik airbase in southern Turkey as a base for raids against ISIL fighters in Syria.
Cavusoglu said two issues had to be solved to bring peace to Syria: destroy ISIL and "other terrorist groups", and bring about a political transformation in Syria with the departure of the Assad government.
I really don't care what's best for Saudi Arabia, Turkey, or even Israel. Don't see them doing much to stop ISIS or protect Christians and other minorities in areas where they're threatened.
Sometimes, to win the war, it’s necessary to align with some rather distasteful “allies” in a marriage of convenience. We did exactly that with Stalin’s USSR in World War II. If the clown show known as the American government had any semblance of forethought, instead of backing al-Qaeda all these many months, it would’ve been conversing with Assad’s government and backed a sovereign Syria against the ISIS cancer.
What happened to Barkey’s “red line” ?
The Obama admin would rather deal with religion than with statists. But only if the religion is Islam.
Funny how that works.
I am not fond of Assad, but I prefer him to chaos, anarchy, or an ISIS state. The one thing that worries me is Kerry agreeing with me. Perhaps that means I’m wrong about Syria.
The Obama administration is the most inept in American history. They don't have to worry about responding to Republican criticism, they just have to worry about contradicting themselves.
And the Greeks. And the Kurds.
I agree. Assad is not a threat to the United States, the fact that the House of Saud or the Israelis hate him isn't evidence that he's our problem.
The Saudis helped create the monster that is ISIS, so they're in no position to make demands on anybody. They were willing to fund and arm everyone and anyone in Iraq and Syria who was Sunni fighting Shi'ites. Eventually, their creations (Al Quaeda, ISIS) get out of control and start biting the hand that feeds them, then they cry foul an demand that the US do something about it.
Meanwhile, they still see Shi'ites in Iran and Syria as a greater threat than ISIS, regardless of their rhetoric.
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