President Erdoğan: We should turn the entire region into a de facto safe zone
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan addressed citizens during an opening ceremony of the newly-built facilities in the province of Malatya.
“We have foiled to some extent the insidious game played to completely surround our country along our Syria and Iraq borders,” President Erdoğan noted, adding that the main threat to Turkey, on the other hand, is the terror formation east of the Euphrates. Pointing to the ongoing talks with the U.S. for a safe zone east of Euphrates, President Erdoğan stressed: “We see again and again at every step we take that what we want about this issue and what they have in mind are not the same.”
“WE SHOULD TURN THE ENTIRE REGION INTO A DE FACTO SAFE ZONE”
Underscoring that Turkey cannot tolerate steps that will pave the way for new refugee flows, President Erdoğan went on to say: “We have no other option but to go our own way unless the creation of a de facto safe zone with our own forces east of the Euphrates is not launched by the end of September. It is not a job that can be achieved with a couple of helicopter flights or five or ten vehicle patrols, or with the presence of a few hundreds of soldiers in the region for the sake of appearances. We should turn the entire region, together with its towns and rural areas, into a de facto safe zone in order to resettle one million people therein.”
Further stressing that there has never been any human rights violation in the places that Turkey has so far made secure, President Erdoğan noted: “We, together with our Syrian brothers and sisters, are determined to create a living space east of the Euphrates, in which peace, security and stability will prevail.”
Earlier in the day, President Erdoğan delivered a speech at the 13th Congress of the ÖNDER Association of Imam Hatip Alumni.
