Türkiye won’t allow Syria to fall into instability: Erdoğan

ANTALYA

Türkiye will not tolerate attempts to plunge Syria into another wave of instability and will continue to support the new administration in Damascus, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has said, accusing Israel of attempting to incite sectarian and ethnic conflicts within the Middle Eastern nation.

“[In Syria] no one should misunderstand our approach to solving issues through dialogue, our composure should not lead anyone to false ambition,” Erdoğan said in his address on the occasion of the opening ceremony of the Antalya Diplomacy Forum on April 11.

Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa, Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev and Turkish Cypriot President Ersin Tatar were among the audience along with hundreds of other senior officials from across the world.

Erdoğan, in his lengthy speech, explained the basics of Turkish foreign policy and Ankara’s perspective concerning current global and regional issues, particularly Syria and the continued Israeli massacres against Palestine.

Reiterating Türkiye’s full support to Syria’s new leaders, who toppled Bashar al-Assad through “the revolution of Dec. 8” in their efforts to reconstruct the country and protect its sovereignty and territorial integrity, Erdoğan said Türkiye would never allow this country to fall into instability.

“Türkiye was one of the countries that suffered most from 14-year civil war of Syria,” Erdoğan said, citing 911 kilometers-long border between the two nations.

“With Dec. 8 revolution, we cannot allow opportunity to establish lasting stability in not only Syria but our entire region to be wasted."

Slamming Israel’s attacks against Syria and Lebanon as a move threatening regional peace and stability, Erdoğan also accused Israel of trying to provoke new sectarian and ethnic conflicts inside Syria.

The Turkish leader informed about his dialogue with U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Syria and stressed that all have a similar stance on the protection of the territorial integrity of this country.

Israel commits genocide

World politics is suffering from a lack of human conscience and justice, and the primary source of this deterioration is the continued aggression of Israel toward Palestinians in Gaza, Erdoğan stressed.

“Opposing this tyranny and giving strongest possible response is not only our duty of brotherhood but also our duty to humanity,” he said, accusing Israel of committing “genocide and state terror.”

“As long as Israel’s state terror in Gaza continues, the ceasefire is sabotaged and bombs continue to rain down on innocent people, it will be very difficult to achieve lasting peace in the Middle East,” Erdoğan said, recalling that the only way for peace is the acceptance of two-state formula.

EU still our objective

Türkiye wants a region with peace and prosperity and promotes dialogue and diplomacy for the resolution of all the problems, the president said.

On ties with the U.S., Erdoğan expressed his hope that bilateral ties will flourish under the Trump administration with plans to increase the trade volume to $100 billion.

In response to the claims that Türkiye’s path to the EU has already been derailed, Erdoğan said, “I want to stress from here once again: Full membership to the EU is still our strategic objective. We are ready and committed to take our seat in the EU.”

He also repeated that Türkiye plays a strategic role in its region and beyond as a member of NATO, urging the EU that their effort to shape a new security architecture in the continent should not exclude Türkiye.