Syrian President Bashar Assad has accused Turkey of being party to his country’s bloodshed by giving logistical support to rebel fighters.
Assad also claimed that Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan was “two-faced” for pursuing a sectarian agenda in the region and trying to persuade Damascus to make political reforms while ignoring the killings and democratic shortfalls in Gulf Arab states.
In the second part of an interview published today, the Cumhuriyet newspaper quoted Assad as saying: “With his desire from the beginning to interfere in our internal affairs, unfortunately, in the subsequent period he has made
Turkey a party to all the bloody acts in Syria. Turkey has given all kinds of logistical support to the terrorists killing our people.”
In the first part of the interview, Assad said he wished his forces had not shot down a Turkish jet last month. Turkish foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu dismissed Assad’s comments as lies and said he did not believe the Syrian leader had any such regrets.
Turkey had cultivated close ties with its southern neighbour over the past decade but as Syria’s president continued to ignore Turkish calls for restraint in dealing with an uprising against his government, the two leaders fell out.
Mr Erdogan has since called for Assad — in power since 2000 — to step down and has compared his crackdown on opponents to that of Nazi Germany. Turkey now hosts the Free Syrian Army fighting Assad’s forces, allowing them to cross the border freely. But Ankara denies it is arming them.
There are also more than 35,000 Syrian refugees in Turkish camps.
