Erdoğan says does not think US would stand by a ‘murderer’ like Assad
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has said he does not presume that the US administration would stand by Syrian President Bashar Assad whom he referred to as a “murderer,” indicating that he seeks clarification on recent remarks by top US officials on Assad’s future.
Erdoğan’s remarks came as he responded questions by reporters at a joint press conference with his Ukrainian counterpart in Kiev on Friday. When he was asked whether recent remarks by Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director John Brennan and US Secretary of State John Kerry on Assad’s future signal a change in US administration’s policy on Syria, Erdoğan recalled that the offices of both Kerry and Brennan later “clarified” those statements. “I assume that we will be able to understand which of these statements are true during our meeting with US leaders because it is impossible for the Syrian people to reach peace and welfare under Assad. I do not think it is possible for the US administration and US institutions to stand by such a murderer,” he said.
In a CBS interview that aired on Sunday, Kerry did not repeat the standard US line that Assad had lost all legitimacy and had to go. Syria’s civil war is now in its fourth year, with hundreds of thousands killed and millions of Syrians displaced.
“We have to negotiate in the end,” Kerry said when asked whether the United States would be willing to negotiate with Assad. “We’ve always been willing to negotiate in the context of the Geneva I process,” he added, referring to a 2012 conference that called for a negotiated transition to end the conflict.
Kerry said the US and other countries, which he did not name, were exploring ways to reignite the diplomatic process to end the conflict in Syria.
“What we’re pushing for is to get him [Assad] to come and do that, and it may require that there be increased pressure on him of various kinds in order to do that,” Kerry said.
“We’ve made it very clear to people that we are looking at increased steps that can help bring about that pressure,” he added.
But State Department Deputy Spokesperson Marie Harf said later that Kerry, in the interview with CBS News that aired on Sunday, was not specifically referring to Assad. She reiterated that Washington would never negotiate with the Syrian leader.
CIA Director John Brennan also said last week that the US does not want to see Syrian President Assad’s government collapse and create a vacuum for the terrorist Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) to take over.
Speaking at an event at the New York-based think tank Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), Brennan said, “What we don’t want to do is to allow those extremist elements,” including ISIL, Jabhat al-Nusra and al-Qaeda elements within Syria, to seize power from a collapsed regime.
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