Turkish PM accuses Syrian president of ‘being too slow to reform’

In his appearance on the American television interview show “Charlie Rose,” which aired on Wednesday, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said: “We had long discussions … one year ago about lifting state of emergency, release of political prisoners. We discussed these issues and elections, I mean, changing the election system, allowing political parties, and we discussed all of these issues with him. However, he was late in taking these steps, and I hope he immediately takes these steps quickly.”

The transcript of the interview was made available to Today's Zaman in advance of the broadcast by the PBS network. Describing Bashar as a “good friend”, Erdoğan stated that Turkey conveyed a message that it could give a hand in providing a roadmap on how to reform state institutions and political parties. “They [Syrians] started to examine our [ruling Justice and Development Party] party, and I said, “If necessary, send us your people. We can train them, we can show them around in our party.”

And then we agreed, actually, on these points,” he underscored. Asked on recent deal between Hamas and Fatah agreement, Erdoğan said he was very pleased with what had happened. “I spent a lot of efforts as prime minister for many years to bring them together, and now I am very happy to see that this happened,” he noted, adding to that, “If peace will come to Middle East, this will start from the internal peace in Palestine.”

Prime Minister Erdoğan also dismissed labeling Hamas as terrorist organization. “Let me give you a very clear message, I don’t see Hamas as a terror organization. Hamas is a political party -- it emerged as a political party that appeared as a political party. And plus it is an organization; it is a resistance movement trying to protect its country under occupation. So we should not mix terrorist organizations with such an organization, and they entered into the elections. They won the elections, they had ministers, and they had parliament speakers who were imprisoned by Israel, about 35 ministers and members of parliament in Israel prisons. Where is terrorism? They entered into the elections and after the elections this is how they were reacted, I mean, calling them terrorists, this would be disrespect to the will of the Palestinian people” he explained.

The Turkish leader also repeated his government’s earlier demands from Israel after the flotilla incident during which nine Turkish citizens were killed by Israeli soldiers. He said Turkey is looking for three demands to be met by Israel. “This is absolutely certain” he underlined, referring to the demands for an apology, compensation and the lifting of the embargo on Gaza.

“We are in the Middle East, we are a country that’s accepted the statehood of Israel and Palestine. We honor, and we recommend this to everybody, we defend this. And we bring together the sides,” he explained.

On EU-Turkey reations, PM Erdoğan said the membership talks are a “process” just like the growing ties with the Muslim world. He accused the EU of not respecting the principle of pacta sund servanda --- meaning prior agreements with Turkey should be kept. “We never cut our relations [with the EU], and during my present in the office as prime minister for eight years, we advanced it [relations]. And we are very determined to advance it,” he stated. Erdoğan said all the other talks were simply part of a “black campaign” to smear Turkish determination to become full member. “We are determined. And they [who run smear campaign against Turkey] want Turkey to give up,” he added.

Erdoğan underlined that Turkey is already in Europe with 5 million citizens of Turkish origin living and working in EU countries. “I mean, we are somehow entered into EU in France, in Germany, Netherlands, Sweden,” he said, stressing Turkey had fulfilled most of the economic and political criteria set up by the Union.

With regard to growing ties with the Muslim world, Erdoğan dismissed claims of axis change in the direction of Turkish foreign policy as well. “Frequently, they talk about this shift. None of them are shift. These are just normalizations. The West has much more intensive relations with the Islamic world than we do,” he said, stressing the economic relations of France, Britain, Germany with Muslim World are far greater than Turkey’s relations. “In Iran, the West has much further relations than we do. They have investments in Iran. They have indirect commercial ties with Iran. In financial terms, the Western financial institutions have strong relations with Iran,” the Turkish prime minister remarked.

In response to another question, the Turkish prime minister described his AK Party as a “centrist party with conservative democratic features.” “The AK party was favored by the people.