Erdoğan says Turkey entered Syria to end al-Assad’s rule

Speaking at the first Inter-Parliamentary Jerusalem Platform Symposium in Istanbul president Erdoğan said the Turkish military launched its operations in Syria to end the rule of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. He also commented as follows: “In my estimation, nearly 1 million people have died in Syria. These deaths are still continuing without exception for children, women and men. Where is the United Nations? What is it doing? Is it in Iraq? No. We preached patience but could not endure in the end and had to enter Syria together with the Free Syrian Army (FSA)”

Erdoğan said: “Why 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. We entered there to end the rule of the tyrant al-Assad who terrorizes with state terror. We didn’t enter for any other reason,” the president said.

On Aug. 24, the Turkish Armed Forces launched an operation in Syria, the Euphrates Shield operation, with FSA fighters to ostensibly clear the country’s southern border of both the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) forces, which Ankara considers as a terrorist group linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

Last week, a total of six Turkish troops, of them four in a suspected Syrian government attack, and two in ISIL attacks, were killed in three separate attacks from Nov. 24 to 26.

SOURCE: MEDIA (HURRIYET DAILY NEWS)