Turkey's Foreign Minister says Al-Qaeda and Al-Assad regime are partners

Turkey’s Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told Anadolu news agency on Thursday that the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, also known as Daash, is a secret partner of the Syrian regime. According to Davutoglu, the organisation emerged in Syria when the opposition began winning control of areas in the north of the country, and has been committing wrong practices against the people ever since to show the Syrian regime as a saviour.

In recent days, several groups of Syrian rebels have united militarily against Daash, which they claim has hijacked their revolution. Daash is aligned with Al-Qaeda and exists in both Syria and Iraq.

Davutoglu explained that his country has been warning Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad since the beginning of the conflict of the consequences of prolonged injustice, insisting on the need to involve all groups in sharing power. He also said that the Syrian security forces attacked peaceful protestors for ten months following the outbreak of civil protests in the country, and affirmed that his country welcomes Syrian refugees, regardless of their ethnic or sectarian affiliation.

The Turkish minister noted that Syrian officers who defect from the regime are not terrorists, but have simply refused to practice injustice against their own people like General Faiz Amro, the chief council of the Syrian Turkmen, who refused to murder Syrians and defected from the regime to Turkey.

Davutoglu added that elements of the Syrian regime along with the Democratic Union Party, representing Kurds in Syria, and Al-Qaeda are all factors threatening Syria’s security, stressing that all foreign forces should leave Syria and that Turkey does not support armed groups at all but will support anyone who works to maintain the unity of Syria and rejects extremism and terrorism.

SOURCE: Assabeel