Turkey called on the international community to oppose all terrorist groups without discrimination, noting it is unacceptable to partner with one terrorist organization in the fight against another.
Turkey believes that all terrorist organizations should be fought without discrimination in order to ensure international peace and security, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said Friday.
Speaking to reporters on his way back from Ukraine where he met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Erdoğan said that Turkey resolutely continues its fight against the Daesh terrorist organization and the distorted mentality it represents on its path to ensuring international peace and stability.
"In this context, we have active contributions to international efforts. In addition, we have played a very important role in the decline of the Daesh terrorist organization with the operations we carried out and the preventive measures we took, both at home and abroad. As an active member of the International Coalition Against Daesh, our country will continue to contribute actively to international efforts in the fight against the terrorist organization."
"On the other hand, we believe that all terrorist organizations should be fought without discrimination in order to ensure international peace and security," he added.
Also, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Tanju Bilgiç late Thursday issued the statement following the killing of the leader of Daesh in a raid early Thursday in northwestern Syria by United States special forces.
Turkey's determined stance and contributions in the fight against the Daesh terrorist group are evident, said Bilgiç.
Noting that Turkey plays an active role in the fight against Daesh and the deviant mentality it represents, Bilgiç stressed that all terrorist groups should be fought without discrimination, including Daesh, the PKK and the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ), which orchestrated the defeated coup of July 15, 2016, in Turkey.
U.S. President Joe Biden delivered remarks Thursday on the counterterrorism operation that resulted in the killing of the Daesh leader known as Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi.
Turkey was one of the first countries to declare Daesh a terrorist group. The country has since been attacked multiple times by the terrorist organization, which has carried out at least 10 suicide bombings, seven bomb attacks and four armed attacks, killing 315 people and injuring hundreds more. In response, Turkey launched counterterrorism operations at home and abroad to prevent further attacks.
The PKK is a designated terrorist organization in the U.S., Turkey and the European Union, and Washington's support for its Syrian affiliate has been a major strain on bilateral relations with Ankara. The U.S. primarily partnered with the PKK's Syrian branch, the YPG, in northeastern Syria in its fight against the Daesh terrorist group. On the other hand, Turkey strongly opposed the YPG/PKK's presence in northern Syria. Ankara has long objected to the U.S.' support for the YPG, a group that poses a threat to Turkey and terrorizes local people, destroying their homes and forcing them to flee.
Under the pretext of fighting Daesh, the U.S. has provided military training and given truckloads of military support to the YPG, despite its NATO ally's security concerns. Underlining that one cannot support one terrorist group to defeat another, Turkey conducted its own counterterrorism operations, over the course of which it has managed to remove a significant number of terrorists from the region.
