Tuesday, July 12, 2016

Turkish PM says ‘not many reasons’ to fight with Syria and Egypt, hinting at policy change

Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım has said there are “not many reasons” to fight with any countries in Turkey’s region, including Syria and Egypt, vowing that Ankara would continue to try to improve relations with its neighbors.

“There are not many reasons for us to fight with Iraq, Syria, Egypt and countries in all regions. But there are many reasons to carry relations forward,” Yıldırım said at a meeting of his Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) “Politics Academy” in the capital Ankara on July 11.

Turkey has recently moved to normalize strained ties with Russia and Israel, and Yıldırım stressed that Turkey “regards all countries as friends.”

“We will increase our friendships and decrease enmities. We will also increase our friendships within the country. We will refrain from meaningless and empty discourse. From now on, we will improve our friendships with all countries surrounding the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. We will keep our disagreements at a minimum,” he vowed.

However, Yıldırım maintained that Turkey was right to down the Russian jet in November last year over border violations – the incident which sparked the breakdown in relations between Ankara and Moscow.

“But enmity between countries cannot be permanent. Relations between administrators can turn sour, but what the public says is important. People do not approve of this disagreement and, in the end, good sense prevailed. Both sides and leaders made an effort. The voice of the Russian and Turkish nations was listened to and eventually normalization was realized,” he added.
 [hurriyetdailynews.com]
 12/7/16
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