Erdogan: Syrian Strike Should Topple Assad

By C. J. Refsland on August 31, 2013 • ( 0 )

My Comment: Keep your eyes on Turkey. The alliances of the Middle East are changing like the seasons. And remember Turkey is a NATO member.

The goal of any military intervention in Syria should be to topple Bashar Al-Assad’s regime, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday.

Erdogan said that the limited strikes which the United States is reportedly planning against Syria would not be enough and pushed for a broader military offensive.

“A limited operation cannot be satisfactory for us,” he was quoted as saying by the NTV news channel.

“An intervention akin to that decided for Kosovo must be launched. An operation of one or two days will not be enough. The goal should be to force the regime out,” declared Erdogan.

His comments came as President Barack Obama reiterated that he has not made a final decision about a military strike against Syria, but added he is considering a limited action in response to a chemical weapons attack that he says Syria’s government carried out last week.

He said that while his preference would have been for the international community to move forward on a response to the chemical attack, he was in the planning process for a response to the chemical weapons use in Syria.

The comments came after the U.S. released an intelligence assessment that found with “high confidence” that Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad’s government carried out a chemical weapons attack last week.

Erdogan was once an ally of Assad but is now one of his fiercest critics and, since the beginning of the Syrian civil war, has repeatedly called on Assad to go.

via Erdogan: Syrian Strike Should Topple Assad – Middle East – News – Israel National News.