PM Erdoğan dismisses al-Assad’s peace plan

LIBREVILLE / CAIRO

The Netherlands’ Patriot missile batteries begins their journey to Turkey. AA Photo

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s peace plan offer could not be considered “democratic” as he continues to bomb his own people, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said yesterday, a day after the Egyptian president said he backed Syrian calls for the embattled leader to be tried for war crimes.

“The advices of a person who kills his own with bombs cannot be considered democratic. Al-Assad is misleading by labeling opponents ‘terrorists’ or ‘al-Qaeda,’” Erdoğan said in Gabon, during a press conference with his Gabonese counterpart Raiomond Ndong Sima.

‘Respecting the will of people only solution’

“Al-Assad is committing state terror and 50,000 people have been killed. Some 600,000 people have fled the country and 2.5 million people have left their houses. Is this something a democratic person could do?” Erdoğan said, adding that respecting the will of the Syrian people was al-Assad’s only choice, according to Anatolia news agency. The Syrian president recently offered a road map to end the conflict in a rare speech on Jan. 6. The main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) has found Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s proposed peace plan for his country within consideration and scorned the international community’s negative reactions.

“The slogan of ‘Assad should go,’ which the Syrian opposition and its external supporters are chanting in chorus obsessively, is not a policy. Syrian people should decide this consequence with their own will,” CHP Deputy Chair Faruk Loğoğlu said yesterday in a written statement. The speech was criticized by the U.S. as “detached from reality.” However, Iran threw its weight behind its ally.

Meanwhile, Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi has made a call to the Syrian people by saying that he supported calls by people in Syria for Bashar al-Assad to be tried for war crimes. “Syrians will decide what they want to do against those who committed crimes against them. It is for the Syrian people to decide,” Morsi told CNN in an interview, after being asked whether he believed that al-Assad should be tried by the Netherlands-based International Criminal Court.