President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said those who support state terrorism in Syria are as responsible for the atrocities in that country as the Assad regime. What he said boils down to the fact that the Assad regime, supported by the Russians and Iranians, is committing crimes against the people of Syria, killing them with bombs, forcing them to flee to neighboring countries including Turkey and sooner or later the terrorist tactics they are using against innocent civilians will backfire and the terrorist's weapons will turn against them.

The Russians have suffered as much as us Turks at the hands of terrorists, especially those based in Chechenia. The Iranians have also had their fair share of terrorist attacks in their own country. So they should know better than trying to bolster a regime that is killing its own people

It is absolutely wrong to say "your terrorist is bad" and "my terrorist is good." There is nothing good about terrorism and all forms of it should be rejected and eradicated.

President Erdoğan is not about to start picking on Iran and Russia. On the contrary, he has been the leading personality defending Iran at the worst of times in the past and the Iranian leadership can only feel deep gratitude for the Turkish leader because of this. It was the Erdoğan administration that acted to bring together Iran and the leading countries of the West to start a dialogue that eventually ended with the recent nuclear deal. Can anyone deny Erdoğan's constructive role in this regard?

Turkey has opposed Chechen terrorists and their al-Qaida allies right from the start. Turkey has limited its criticism of Russia in Crimea and Ukraine to the minimum. Can President Putin deny this?

However, Iran and Russia have to understand that by prolonging the life span of the Assad regime they are only deepening human suffering in Syria, sharpening the will of Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) terrorists to hit back so much so that al-Nusra Front has now said it will also target all the Alawites in Syria. What they have also done is to further force people to flee their homes and join the millions of refugees that flood into neighboring countries.

Of course Erdoğan will raise hell for this situation. He is the president of a country that has displayed unbelievable hospitality to Syrians fleeing the massacre in their own country, unmatched anywhere else in the world. Turks have embraced 2.2 million Syrians and spent $6.7 billion for them without any serious outside help but the Syrian presence in Turkey has also created complications and thanks to the compassion, benevolence, generosity and hospitality of the Turkish people these complications have been tolerated. However, there is a limit to our hospitality and patience and the worsening situation because of Russian and Iranian support to Assad is not helping to say the least. This is what Erdoğan is pointing at.

Erdoğan's criticism of course is not only limited to Russia and Iran. He is aware that the PKK and the left-wing Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C) terrorists are getting support from Western sources. How come the Milan anti-tank missiles sent to the peshmerga forces of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) end up in the hands of the PKK terrorists who attacked Turkish soldiers and policemen in Turkey? May be Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is coming to Ankara this weekend, will enlighten Erdoğan on this issue...

It is the time to cooperate to eradicate all forms of terrorism. Those who think they can manipulate terrorists and spare themselves from violence are wrong. History is full of sad examples of this.