{"id":52993,"date":"2012-04-29T12:13:19","date_gmt":"2012-04-29T09:13:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/?p=52993"},"modified":"2014-01-07T16:03:48","modified_gmt":"2014-01-07T14:03:48","slug":"fm-defends-syria-policy-says-turkey-to-lead-wave-of-change-in-mideast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/2012\/04\/29\/fm-defends-syria-policy-says-turkey-to-lead-wave-of-change-in-mideast\/","title":{"rendered":"FM Defends Syria Policy, Says Turkey to Lead \u2018Wave of Change\u2019 in Mideast"},"content":{"rendered":"

Friday, 27 April 2012<\/strong><\/span>
\n\"\"
\nForeign Minister Ahmet Davuto\u011flu defended the government’s foreign policy regarding Syria as he briefed lawmakers on Thursday on the latest developments in the neighboring country and Turkey’s position regarding its uprising, saying Turkey is determined to lead a \u201cwave of change\u201d in the Middle East.<\/p>\n

\u201cA new Middle East is emerging and we will continue to lead this. Turkey will pioneer this order of peace. \u2026 The 74 million Turkish people are with the Syrian people and will continue to be,\u201d Davuto\u011flu said. The briefing comes amidst a fragile cease-fire in the neighboring country brokered by UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan to end the 13-month Syrian conflict and talk of harsher measures if the international peace plan, which has been shaken by violence, ultimately collapses.<\/p>\n

Turkey has had to consider a variety of options as the tension along the Syrian border escalates, Davuto\u011flu noted.<\/p>\n

\u201cTurkey does not warmonger. People who accuse us of following a hot-blooded policy in Syria should understand that Turkey will not be caught unprepared for any contingency in the Syrian crisis. It is our obligation to determine what measures we would take on our borders with Syria [regarding the escalating tension],\u201d Davuto\u011flu claimed.<\/p>\n

Two Turkish nationals and two Syrians were injured on April 9 at a refugee camp in Kilis province when Syrian forces fired across the border during clashes with opposition fighters that reportedly had attempted to seize control of the border gate and then fled to Turkey. The Turkish government called the incident a border violation and said Turkey would pursue measures under international law in response, raising prospects of military retaliation.<\/p>\n

Following the incident, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdo\u011fan referred to NATO\u2019s Article 5 for a collective security defense against Syria. However, NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen has repeatedly dismissed that NATO is contemplating action against Syria. The 13-month crisis is Syria is due to a brutal offensive pursued by President Bashar al-Assad against dissent. The truce envisaged by international envoy Kofi Annan\u2019s peace plan has been proven to be shaky as the armed conflict between the opposition and the regime continues in such restive towns as Hama and Homs.<\/p>\n

Davuto\u011flu indicated that Turkey always stands with the people of the Middle East, regardless of sectarian, religious or ethnic differences between them, rather than the \u201cminority dictatorships\u201d in the region. \u201cThe Syrian regime is not a threat only to the Syrian people; it has become an issue for regional security. We reject all kinds of sectarian and ethnically based politics in the region. At the end of the road, the change in Syria will benefit all its people, not one single ethnic or religious group,\u201d Davuto\u011flu noted.<\/p>\n

The Alawite sect of Assad and his Alawite-dominated government rules a Sunni majority in Syria. Turkey has regularly expressed its concerns with regard to a potential sectarian conflict spilling over into the rest of the region from Syria and Iraq. At the same time, the opposition harshly criticized Davuto\u011flu\u2019s remarks on the government\u2019s policy regarding Syria.<\/p>\n

Defining the policy a failure, CHP Deputy Chairman Osman Korut\u00fcrk maintained that \u201cTurkey has turned into an interventionist country, meddling in the internal affairs of its neighbors, instigating war and taking part in regional conflicts.\u201d \u201cTurkey has become an isolated country within the international community due to its Syria policy. It pretended to back Annan\u2019s peace plan but has created a perception that it supports a military intervention in Syria,\u201d Korut\u00fcrk added.<\/span>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Friday, 27 April 2012 Foreign Minister Ahmet Davuto\u011flu defended the government’s foreign policy regarding Syria as he briefed lawmakers on Thursday on the latest developments in the neighboring country and Turkey’s position regarding its uprising, saying Turkey is determined to lead a \u201cwave of change\u201d in the Middle East. \u201cA new Middle East is emerging […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":52994,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[89],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-turkey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52993"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52993\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}