Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim vowed on Saturday Ankara would play a “more active” role
in the next six months in efforts to solve the five-year Syrian civil war.
Yildirim — whose foreign minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, made a surprise visit to Iran this week — said Ankara will step up efforts to reduce “instability” in the region.
“We say the bloodshed needs to stop. Babies, children, innocent people should not die. That’s why Turkey will be more active in trying to stop the danger getting worse in the next six months, compared with before,” Yildirim told foreign reporters in Istanbul.
Yildirim said Syrian President Bashar al-Assad can remain temporarily during a transition period as “he is one of the actors today no matter whether we like it or not”.
But the premier stressed that Assad has no role to play in Syria’s future. “We believe that the PKK, Daesh and Assad should not be in the future of Syria,” he added, referring to the Syrian Kurds and the ISIS group in the war-torn country.
Yildirim said it was “out of the question” for Turkey to talk with the Syrian leader, and said regional countries Turkey and Iran as well as Russia and the United States must work toward a solution in Syria.