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Turkey's Gül says has lost confidence in Syria
“We are really very sad. Incidents are said to be 'finished' and then another 17 people are dead. How many will it be today? Clearly we have reached a point where anything would be too little too late. We have lost our confidence,” Gül said in an interview with the Anatolia news agency which was wired on Sunday.
“Today in the world there is no place for authoritarian administrations, one-party rule, closed regimes. Those either will be replaced by force, or the governors of states will take the initiative to administer,” Gül said.
“Everyone should know that we are with the Syrian people... What is fundamental is the people,” he said.
Earlier this month Gül, who like other Turkish leaders has put pressure on Syria to end a violent crackdown on protests, appealed to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad not to leave reforms until it was too late.
Gül sent a letter to Assad via Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, who traveled to Damascus on Aug. 9 for a six-and-a-half-hour meeting with Assad, pressing him personally for an end to the military crackdown on mass street protests that erupted around six months ago and have spread to much of the country.
“I would not want to see you in a position where you look back and regret what you did as late and insufficient,” Gül had said in his letter.
Davutoğlu recently said the Turkish government has not been in contact with the Syrian regime after Assad failed to honor his promise to stop all military operations and immediately enact sweeping changes in line with the demands of the Syrian people.
For the situation concerning Libya, Turkey's president has maintained that the regime in this country was already unsustainable.
“Libya's survival for such a long time under a single person's authoritarian rule for years has already been unbelievable,” said Gül, adding that it was not possible to understand how it had continued for such a long time.
According to Gül, this country with a 2,000 kilometer coastline on the Mediterranean, the world's richest oil reserves and a low population, could have been the most prosperous country in the world if it had been appropriately ruled.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, meanwhile, in his national address set to be aired on Sunday night, said it was impossible for anyone with a conscience to accept what has happened in Syria.
“A regime cannot survive with force, tyranny and by killing unarmed people on the streets, with heavy guns. The sole way out is silencing the guns at once and taking heed of people's demands,” Erdoğan said. “In the last few months, in Tunisia and Egypt, we have seen what happened to those who didn't choose this way. At the moment, we have been witnessing with sadness what has been happening in Libya. Democracy and freedom demands are legitimate demands of the people,” he said.
Recalling that Turkey in the past has warned the leaderships of Egypt, Tunisia and Libya, Erdoğan said it has been now delivering the same warnings to the leaderships in Syria and Yemen.
“Knowing to draw a lesson and stopping the violence against civilians -- who are just voicing their demands -- at once is a must,” he said.
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