{"id":281,"date":"2016-12-02T03:32:43","date_gmt":"2016-12-02T03:32:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/?p=281"},"modified":"2016-12-02T03:33:57","modified_gmt":"2016-12-02T03:33:57","slug":"turkish-president-eats-his-words-on-call-to-end-assads-rule","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/2016\/12\/02\/turkish-president-eats-his-words-on-call-to-end-assads-rule\/","title":{"rendered":"Turkish president eats his words on call to end Assad’s rule"},"content":{"rendered":"

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has backtracked on his earlier statements that his country\u2019s military forces launched operations in neighboring Syria to end the rule of the incumbent Damascus government,\u00a0asserting that the offensives there are aimed only at terrorists.<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cThe aim of the Euphrates Shield Operation [in northern Syria] is not any country or person, but only terrorist organizations,\u201d Erdogan said in a speech at the presidential palace in Istanbul on Thursday.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He added, \u201cNo one should doubt this issue that we have uttered over and over, and no one should comment on it in another fashion or try to derail it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The remarks came only two days after Erdogan said the Turkish army marched into Syria to end the rule of President Bashar al-Assad, whom he accused of terrorism and causing the deaths of thousands.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

The Turkish president further alleged that Ankara had no territorial claims in Syria, and that Turkey was seeking to restore\u00a0\u201cjustice\u201d in the war-torn Arab country.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy did we enter? We do not have an eye on Syrian soil. The issue is to provide lands to their real owners. That is to say we are there for the establishment of justice,\u201d\u00a0he said.<\/p>\n

He went on to say that\u00a0he estimates almost one million people to have died in the conflict in Syria.\u00a0This is while UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura puts the number of people killed in the five-year foreign-sponsored militancy at more than 400,000 people.<\/p>\n

Those remarks caused consternation in the Kremlin, with\u00a0Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov\u00a0demanding Erdogan to clarify anti-Assad goals in Syria.<\/p>\n

Late on Wednesday, the Turkish leader and Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin discussed the latest situation in Syria over the phone. The two statesmen also talked about efforts to find a solution to the humanitarian crisis in the divided northwestern Syrian city of Aleppo.<\/p>\n

On August 24, the Turkish air force and special ground forces kicked off Operation Euphrates Shield inside Syria in a declared\u00a0bid to support the Free Syrian Army\u00a0militants and rid the border area of Daesh terrorists and fighters from the Kurdish People\u2019s Protection Units (YPG) and Democratic Union Party (PYD).<\/p>\n

The offensive was launched in coordination with the US-led military coalition, which has purportedly been fighting Daesh extremists since 2014.<\/p>\n

The incursion was\u00a0the first major Turkish military intervention in Syria, which drew strong condemnation from the Syrian\u00a0government for violating the Arab country’s sovereignty.<\/p>\n

\n

http:\/\/www.presstv.ir\/Detail\/2016\/12\/02\/496066\/Turkey-Erdogan-backtrack-comments-Syria-Assad-<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has backtracked on his earlier statements that his country\u2019s military forces launched operations in neighboring Syria to end the rule of the incumbent Damascus government,\u00a0asserting that the offensives there are aimed only at terrorists.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-281","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=281"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":283,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281\/revisions\/283"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}