Turkey's Foreign Ministry dismissed reports by the state-run Saudi Press Agency (SPA) indicating a 34-country Sunni military coalition to combat terrorism has been formed under the leadership Saudi Arabia, saying the alliance would not be military and underlined on Wednesday at a press briefing that "such a military coalition force is currently not on the agenda." Foreign Ministry's spokesman Tanju Bilgiç said the main aim of the coalition is to dismiss claims that link terror to Islam. The SPA published a long list of Arab countries together with predominantly Muslim countries Turkey, Malaysia, Pakistan as well as African states and said these countries have decided to form a military alliance led by Saudi Arabia to fight terrorism with a joint operations center based in Riyadh to coordinate and support military operations.
When asked to provide details of the military operations, Bilgiç said: "I'd like to specifically stress that this alliance is not a military force. The formation of a military force is currently not on the agenda of the alliance. The details to the cooperation of the alliance and its results will soon be revealed as we will provide information regarding it." Underlining that Turkey will provide all necessary support to combat terrorism Bilgiç, said Turkey's involvement in the coalition with the 34-Muslim states should be viewed in that perspective.
He said: "The proposed coalition has a number of sides to it, including military, intelligence cooperation and support while the main aim of these Islamic countries is especially to be the voice against those who are trying to link Islam with terrorism." Emphasizing that talks on the alliance are still fresh, Bilgiç said technical details as well as information on the scope of the operations will be clearer in the upcoming days and will be announced. Aside from Turkish officials' recent statements on the Saudi-led coalition, the SPA announced that the Islamic military alliance has "a duty to protect the Islamic nation from the evils of all terrorist groups and organizations, whatever their sect and name, that wreak death and corruption on earth and aim to terrorize the innocent." While the possible coalition will not include Iran, Beirut-based Middle East reporter Martin Jay said that such a military alliance could deepen sectarian divides between Shiite groups and Sunni Saudi Arabia.
The Foreign Ministry also made comments on Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexei Meshkov's statements on Wednesday that Turkey should guarantee that shooting down a Russian military plane will not happen again in the future. Bilgiç firmly said that a similar incident will not be repeated if Russia can guarantee not violating Turkish airspace. Regarding Meshkov's request from Ankara to pay compensation for downing the Russian fighter jet, the Foreign Ministry said that such compensation is not possible as Russia should not exaggerate the situation. Providing details on Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu's visits in the upcoming days, Bilgiç said Çavuşoğlu will travel to New York on Friday to attend a meeting on the Syrian civil war, which Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will also attend. Bilgiç said that although Çavuşoğlu will have one-on-one meetings with his counterparts, a meeting with Lavrov has not been requested nor arranged as of now.
