Turkey: Saudi Arabia corrupted Yemen

Turkey has no issue with neither Saudi Arabia nor the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Turkish foreign minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, stressed yesterday.

Speaking in an interview with Al-Jazeera, Cavusoglu said that he believed that Saudi Arabia and the UAE had “issues with Ankara.”

Cavusoglu’s remarks came following a recent joint military action by Riyadh and Abu Dhabi against Turkey’s so-called “Peace Spring” offensive at the Turkish-Syrian border.

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“Between the Peace Spring and the war in Yemen, there are thousands have died, because of hunger, epidemic and siege in Yemen,” the Turkish official pointed out, accusing Saudi Arabia of “corrupting Yemen.”

Referring to the murder of the Saudi journalist, Jamal Khashoggi, Cavusoglu described the move as “crisis.”  “We did not cover up the crime and did not take money like others,” he said, referring to the US President Donald Trump’s request for funds from Riyadh to protect its Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman.

Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain recently condemned the Turkish military operation, calling the move a “flagrant violation of the territorial integrity, independence and sovereignty of Syria.”