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Turkey’s Foreign Minister says international coalition can defeat Daesh with ground battles

December 3, 2015 at 2:36 pm

Turkey’s Foreign Minister said yesterday that any effort to defeat Daesh is doomed to fail unless the international coalition fights a ground battle against the group.

“Influential countries in the international coalition are more determined to fight [Daesh],” said Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu in comments during a NATO meeting of foreign ministers in Brussels.

“I explained during all my meetings with the international coalition that we must fight a ground battle against [Daesh] to achieve tangible results,” the Turkish Foreign Minister added.

Çavuşoğlu pointed out that his country has borne the heaviest burden of Syrian refugees in the region, while simultaneously having to respond to terrorist organisations and the internal and external threats they pose to Turkish sovereignty.

“The EU cooperated with Turkey after the global wave of refugees arrived on its shores” he said, adding that “Turkey is the third country to provide humanitarian aid to refugee after the United States and Britain and, if compared to national income, Turkey would top all countries that provide assistance.”

Çavuşoğlu also revealed that he had requested to meet his Russian counterpart in Belgrade this week and was still waiting for a response, adding he does not want the current tension with Moscow to escalate.

Relations between Russia and Turkey have been strained following an incident in which a Russian jet was shot down after allegedly violating Turkish airspace last week.