Davutoğlu: US Embarrassed Over Failure To Heed Turkish Advice On Syria

Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu has said that American officials are very embarrassed for not having heeded Turkey's warnings about the consequences of the conflicts in Syria and Iraq, a Turkish daily reported on Thursday.

In his remarks to a group of journalists on his plane during his return from a visit to Cyprus on Tuesday, Davutoğlu said Turkey has been telling the US for two years that developments in Syria have been evolving into sectarian clashes but that Washington failed to take Ankara's advice, according to the Milliyet daily.

“We have been telling the Americans for two years that these [developments] would take place. Now, the Americans are embarrassed in front us. We said, ‘Let's support the Free Syrian Army [FSA], arms can be supplied to them or declare a de facto no fly-zone there.' The thing that has strengthened ISIL [the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant] is a no-fly zone not having been declared,” Davutoğlu said, as quoted by Milliyet.

He continued on to say that Syrian regime jets had bombed FSA forces and because the Syrian regime feared clashing with the rebels on the ground, ISIL appeared and has grown stronger. Davutoğlu said a strategic coalition was formed between ISIL and the Syrian regime, and the Syrian regime didn't fire a shot on ISIL until ISIL attacked it.

“We said, ‘If this is the way things stand, if the Free Syrian Army won't be backed, as the [Syrian] regime takes on a Nusayri [Arab Alawite] character, a sectarian character, all the Sunnis [fighters] will join ISIL or will radicalize.' A safe haven or a no-fly zone should have been declared,” Davutoğlu said.

The prime minister claimed that if powerful arms had been supplied to the FSA, it wouldn't have weakened. According to him, because the necessary steps weren't taken in time, ISIL emerged as the winner of the clashes in Syria.

When asked if the allies of Turkey and the US now support Turkey's ideas on the region, especially the need to establish a no-fly zone, Davutoğlu said: “Now they are much closer [to Turkey's views than before]. They have seen the results of not heeding our warnings about [former Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri] al-Maliki and [Syrian President Bashar al-] Assad. They have seen the results in the weakening of the Free Syrian Army.

Alleged affiliation with al-Nusra

Prime Minister Davutoğlu also commented on the remarks of a former US ambassador to Turkey suggesting that Turkey is working with some groups that are well beyond moderate, reportedly referring to al-Nusra, an al-Qaeda-linked group fighting in Syria against Assad.

“I don't know in what circumstances he made that [statement]. I mean, why he said that, how the article emerged… But, on the same day, [when US Secretary of State John] Kerry was here, I told him that making this kind of statement is not right. They [the US delegation visiting Turkey] said, ‘We don't know.' Allegations about al-Nusra are absolutely false,” Davutoğlu said.

Last week, the American McClatchy Company news website reported that former US Ambassador to Turkey Francis Ricciardone had said that the US has told Turkey that “some groups” in Syria are not moderate and advised Ankara to keep these elements outside of its borders.

“We said, ‘Yes, sure, OK, but a number of the groups that you're working with, which you consider open to persuasion, we consider beyond the pale. And we will not work with them, and we'd rather you not work with them and we think they need to be blocked from transiting your borders',” Ricciardone, who served for four years as the US ambassador to Turkey, leaving the post in August, was quoted by McClatchy as saying.

According to the report, Turkish and American officials used a three-color scheme to mark the ideological spectrum of rebel groups fighting against Assad in Syria. However, the yellow classification, used to define those in the middle, has become a matter of debate, as the Turkish government has shown a desire to work with groups that the US refrains from supporting. The report mentions the al-Nusra Front and the hardline Ahrar al-Sham as examples of groups that are unacceptable to Washington.

Turkey has been heavily criticized for giving support and weapons to armed groups in Syria and for its failure to call the al-Nusra Front a terrorist organization. Some groups fighting in Syria against Assad have alleged that Turkey provided support for al-Qaeda-linked groups, particularly the al-Nusra Front. However, Turkish officials say the UN Security Council (UNSC) has defined the al-Nusra Front as a terrorist organization, and because the UNSC's decision is binding for all member nations, Turkey does not separately categorize the group as terrorists.

(Cihan/Today's Zaman)