Erdoğan: Iranian sectarianism, Russia’s Mediterranean ambitions source of chaos

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on Sunday that if Russia had not seen the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad as the means to hang on to power in the Mediterranean and if Iran had not adopted a sectarian foreign policy, the world would may not have witnessed the current situation in Syria.

Speaking at the 30th meeting of Birlik Vakfı (Unity Foundation), Erdoğan said Turkey will not turn a blind eye to the suffering of the people throughout the region and the world. "We will keep our temper, but will not turn a deaf ear to our siblings who are under oppression," he said.

Commenting on Moscow's argument that Russian forces are present in Syria due to an invitation from the Syrian regime, Erdoğan said: "You are not obliged to accept a call for help from an administration that has killed 400,000 people." He also said if Iran had not stood next to Assad with its sectarian-driven policies, war-torn Syria may not be in its current situation, where thousands of Iranian troops and several Shiite militia groups from Lebanon and Iraq are fighting alongside the regime.

Erdoğan said Turkey has always stood by the Syrian people and has paid, and continues to pay, heavy prices for such a principled stance, but will not ignore the suffering of the oppressed. He criticized the West for remaining indifferent to the crisis. "Everything would have been different if Western countries provided support to the moderate opposition," Erdoğan said, adding that they only started taking action when refugees arrived at their doorstep.

In an interview with Saudi Arabian broadcaster Al-Arabiya, Erdoğan also pointed to the timing of the crisis with Iraq over the deployment of Turkish troops to the Bashiqa camp north of Mosul, which came after Turkey's refusal of a request from Russia to join a an alliance allied with Syrian President Bashar Assad that would also include regime forces along with Iranian and Iraqi forces.

The relations between Turkey and Iraq were good, Erdoğan said, and the two countries addressed the current developments in the region during the last visit from Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to Turkey. He stressed that Abadi asked Turkey to help after DAESH took control of its second-largest city, Mosul, and that Ankara expressed its full readiness to help Iraq.

Erdoğan said Turkey asked Iraq to allocate a suitable location to deploy Turkish soldiers to conduct training and that Iraq chose the camp site in Bashiqa. He also said that Iraqi Defense Minister Khaled al-Obaidi visited the camp at the time. "It seems that developments in Syria have affected the situation. Syria, Iraq, Russia and Iran have formed an alliance, and Russia asked us to join that alliance. But I told [Russian] President [Vladimir] Putin that I cannot sit together with a president who does not have legitimacy," Erdoğan said.

Iran can no longer hide its ambition to have nuclear weapons, Erdoğan said, and the world does not support Iran's nuclear efforts. Speaking on behalf of the bilateral relations between the two countries, Erdoğan said there are differences between Turkey and Iran, but he does not want these differences to affect their good, neighborly relations. "We should not be enemies to each other based on sectarian attitudes" Erdoğan said. "Our reference must be Islam. There are efforts in the world to divide us."

Erdoğan said the Islamic world should come together and join its efforts. "Look at what is happening in Iraq, Syria, Palestine and Libya. We must move beyond these problems. If we accomplish that, the Islamic world will be more powerful," he said.