"Recognizing de facto situations in Syria carries great risk" FM Davutoğlu

ANKARA

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlusaid, "Syria's future and the kind of political structure would be decided by the parliament elected by Syria's own people. Until that structure is formed, everybody should keep away from de facto situations and accomplished facts. This will create a greater risk."

Speaking at the joint press conference with his Greek counterpart Evangelos Venizelos in Ankara on Friday, Davutoğlu said, "Turkey will continue to take every measure for the security of its borders and citizens," and added, "Regardless of its source and reason, Turkey will continue to respond every kind of threats directed against its border security immediately."

Upon the question about the claims of Bashar Assad's recognition of Ras Al Ayn, a town in Syria's Turkey border seized by a terrorist organization, as an autonomous region, Davutoglu said that certain circles tried to misuse the gap emerged in Syria because of the clashes in Homs.

"Already there is a very fragile and high tense civil war situation in Syria. Efforts to create any kind of fait accompli or de facto situations would further deteriotate the situation," said Davutoğlu.



Davutoğlu said that the Syrian regime might take steps to play off Kurds, Arabs and Turkmens against each other, and continued, "Noone should be deceived by tending towards such accomplished facts, which will lead to more intensive clashes, rather than gaining recognition."

He added, "We always said that it was not possible to accept any kind of ethnical or secterian de facto situations in Syria, which would pave the way for greater problems. However, Syria's future and the kind of political structure would be decided by the parliament elected by Syria's own people. Until that structure is formed, everybody should keep away from de facto situations and accomplished facts. This will create a greater risk."

(AA)