In an exclusive interview Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan gave to the Reuters News agency, which was provided to TV7, the Turkish leader expressed his unease about the advances by the Syrian Kurdish fighters and the Islamic State on the Turkish-Syrian border, while justifying the Turkish insurgency into its southern war-torn neighbor.
“First of all, let me say this: Turkey shares the longest border with Syria. We share a 911 km (560 miles) border and this border is constantly under threat. If you ask who poses this threat, we see Daesh (Islamic State), PYD (Democratic Union Party) and the YPG (People’s Protection Unit). Unfortunately, hundreds of our citizens were martyred, they were killed because of these threats. We have tolerated this. We were patient. We were patient and we were patient but recently, Daesh sent a 14-year-old suicide bomber to a wedding ceremony in the southeast province of Gaziantep and caused the deaths of 56 people. Nearly 100 people were wounded. After this attack, we couldn’t wait. So, together with the moderate opposition we took this step by starting from Jarabulus. We have not deployed all of our troops in Syria but only our special forces who have provided guidance (to rebels) and we have cleansed Jarabulus from the terrorist organization Daesh,” stressed Erdogan.
Erdogan said no lasting peace could be achieved in Syria without removal of President Bashar al-Assad from power. Turkey is one of the main supporters of rebels fighting to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad, and hosts around 2.7 million Syrian refugees.