Tag Archives: Turkey

Turkey’s Erdogan sworn in with new presidential powers

FILE PHOTO: Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan addresses his supporters during an election rally in Istanbul, Turkey, June 23, 2018. REUTERS/Alkis Konstantinidis/File Photo

By Ece Toksabay and Gulsen Solaker

ANKARA (Reuters) – Tayyip Erdogan was sworn in again as Turkey’s president on Monday, assuming sweeping powers he won in a referendum last year and sealed in a hard-fought re-election victory two weeks ago.

Erdogan, who has dominated Turkish politics for 15 years, says the powerful new executive presidency is vital to drive economic growth, ensure security after a failed 2016 military coup and safeguard the country from conflict in Syria and Iraq.

“As president, I swear upon my honor and integrity, before the great Turkish nation and history, to work with all my power to protect and exalt the glory and honor of the Republic of Turkey,” Erdogan told parliament as he took the oath of office.

The introduction of the new presidential system marks the biggest overhaul of governance since the Turkish republic was established on the ruins of the Ottoman Empire nearly a century ago.

The post of prime minister has been scrapped and the president will now be able to select his own cabinet, regulate ministries and remove civil servants, all without parliamentary approval.

Erdogan’s supporters see the changes as a just reward for a leader who has put Islamic values at the core of public life, championed the pious working classes and overseen years of strong economic growth.

Opponents say the move marks a lurch to authoritarianism, accusing Erdogan of eroding the secular institutions set up by modern Turkey’s founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, and driving it further from Western values of democracy and free speech.

NEW CABINET TO BE NAMED

Erdogan is expected to name a streamlined cabinet of 16 ministers on Monday evening after a ceremony at the presidential palace for more than 7,000 guests, including Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Russia’s Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

No major Western leader was included on a list of 50 presidents, prime ministers and other high-ranking guests published by state news agency Anadolu.

Investors were waiting to see whether cabinet appointees would include individuals seen as market-friendly, and particularly whether Mehmet Simsek, currently deputy prime minister, would continue to oversee the economy.

“For the cabinet appointments in the past several years, the most important issue has been the presence of the current deputy prime minister, Mehmet Simsek,” said Inan Demir, a senior economist at Nomura International.

The lira TRYTOM, which is down some 16 percent so far this year and has been battered by concern about Erdogan’s drive for lower interest rates, firmed to its highest level since mid-June before falling back to stand at 4.61 against the dollar at 1350 GMT.

Erdogan has described high interest rates as “the mother and father of all evil”, and said in May he would expect to wield greater economic control after the election.

“We will take our country much further by solving structural problems of our economy,” he said on Saturday, referring to high interest rates, inflation and the current account deficit.

Inflation surged last month above 15 percent, its highest level in more than a decade, despite interest rate hikes of 500 basis points by the central bank since April.

(Editing by Dominic Evans and Gareth Jones)

Bulgaria to propose immediate closure of EU borders to migrants

Bulgarian border policemen stand near the barbed wire fence constructed on the Bulgarian-Turkish border, near Lesovo, Bulgaria September 14, 2016. REUTERS/Stoyan Nenov

SOFIA (Reuters) – Bulgaria will propose the immediate closure of the European Union’s external borders to migrants and the setting up of centers for war refugees outside its territory at the EU’s weekend mini-summit on migration.

Prime Minister Boyko Borissov said once migrant inflows were stemmed, the EU should deal with the thousands of migrants already in Europe, taking care of people fleeing conflict and sending the rest home.

“I will insist on the immediate closure of the external borders of the whole European Union,” Borissov said in a surprise visit to parliament, following an opposition call for information on Bulgaria’s position on migration.

He said centers should be set up in Libya and Turkey to deal with migrants before they reached Europe.

Bulgaria, which holds the European Union presidency, hopes that by halting migrant inflows the bloc may also ease the concerns of Central European countries that are opposing calls to accept a quota of migrants who have entered the EU since 2015 in order to share the burden around the bloc.

“Their fear is that there are no guarantees that this process will not continue,” Borissov said.

He said he would hold talks again with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban over the issue.

On Thursday, leaders of the Visegrad Four countries Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic said they would skip the smaller summit on Sunday ahead of a full 28-member EU summit next week.

On Friday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel downplayed expectations of a major breakthrough being reached at Sunday’s meeting. Borissov said he did not expect that any documents would be signed.

(Reporting by Tsvetelia Tsolova; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

Few Islamic State fighters return but home-grown attacks rise, Europol says

Manuel Navarrete, head of Europol's Counter Terrorism Centre and Catherine De Bolle, head of Europol, hold a news conference in The Hague, Netherlands June 19, 2018. Picture taken June 19, 2018 REUTERS/Eva Plevier

THE HAGUE (Reuters) – Europeans who went off to fight on behalf of Islamic State have not flooded back in large numbers since losing strongholds in Syria and Iraq, Europe’s police agency said on Wednesday, but they have inspired a growing number of home-grown attacks.

Tracking battle-hardened fighters is still the main concern of Western counter-terrorism officials, though a big influx did not materialize, Manuel Navarrete, head of Europol’s Counter Terrorism Centre, told reporters at its Hague headquarters.

“The main threat is coming from foreign terrorist fighters even though the numbers … that are returning are quite low,” he said, referring to outsiders who traveled to Syria and Iraq to fight alongside militants there.

There has been a spike in recent years in IS-inspired attacks by “lone wolves” using little more weaponry than a knife or car. Most have been less deadly than strikes by former fighters, but they are harder for police to stop, he said.

The number of attacks and foiled plots in Europe more than doubled last year to 205, killing 62 people, Europol’s annual report showed.

“Even though we suffer more attacks, they were less sophisticated,” Navarrete said.

Of more than 5,000 Europeans – most from Britain, France, Germany and Belgium – who joined the ranks of fighters in Syria and Iraq, some 1,500 have returned and 1,000 were killed, according to the EU intelligence-sharing body. There is only limited intelligence available about the fate of the rest.

Many fighters have been detained. Some traveled to Malaysia, the Philippines and Libya. Others are thought to be laying low or in third countries like Turkey, he said.

Tougher border controls, surveillance and prosecution in Europe have also dissuaded some from returning, with EU nations making more than 700 arrests linked to jihadi activity in 2017, he said.

The suicide bomber who killed 22 people at an Ariana Grande concert in the English city of Manchester in May 2017 had just returned from Libya. But most recent attacks have been carried out by home-grown jihadists who never went to conflict zones.

As the Islamic State was routed last year from Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria, it urged followers to carry out attacks at home, rather than travel to its self-declared caliphate.

“Now the message of the Islamic State has changed … to being more negative and asking for retaliation,” Navarrete said.

While lone actors often use tactics that result in fewer victims, they pose a threat that is difficult to prevent. In 2016, a man killed 86 people by driving a truck into a crowd in the Mediterranean city of Nice, France.

“You have to be very, very close to a person in order to take action on the police level to prevent this,” Navarrete said. “And the closest you can be to a person right now is not going to the front door, it is going to Facebook, to Twitter.”

(Reporting by Alissa de Carbonnel; Editing by Peter Graff)

Young Turk voters show deep divisions of Erdogan era

Demhat Tari poses for a picture during an interview with Reuters in Diyarbakir, June 4, 2018.REUTERS/Umit Bektas

By Umit Bektas

ANKARA (Reuters) – Eighteen-year-old student Sena Su Baysal, a first-time voter in Turkey’s election on Sunday, can’t remember life before President Tayyip Erdogan took power but she wishes she had grown up in those earlier times.

“Turkey used to be a more modern and secular country,” she says at home in the capital Ankara, where she lives with her parents. “I would have liked to have lived then.”

Mehmet Salih Takil, another student born in 2000, disagrees. He says Erdogan is his idol, and he criticizes the “old Turkey”.

“I was two years old when Erdogan came to power. My family tells me of the pre-2000 years, life was difficult then. I wouldn’t have wanted to live in those years,” he said at an election rally for Erdogan in Ankara.

Like the rest of the country, Turkish teenagers taking part for the first time in elections on Sunday have sharply differing takes on Erdogan – the most successful and polarizing leader in recent Turkish politics.

His AK Party won elections in 2002 and he took power early the next year, ruling the country since then, first as prime minister and then as president.

Polls suggest Sunday’s vote may be close, with the AK Party possibly losing its parliamentary majority and the presidential vote potentially going to a second round.

Erdogan’s supporters, many of them pious conservatives from Turkey’s rural heartlands, say he has brought economic growth and restored Islam to public life. Opponents say he has eroded the secular pillars of the republic established by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk and is plunging Turkey into authoritarianism.

EDUCATION SYSTEM

But the young Turks Reuters spoke to, all born in the first six months of the millennium, share an overriding concern for education and employment prospects.

Arman Tihminlioglu has chosen to attend university in Germany instead of Turkey, saying that repeated changes to Turkey’s education system had worried students. A new curriculum adopted last year excluded Darwin’s theory of evolution, university entrance exams were changed, and money has poured into “Imam Hatip” religious schools.

“The education system has changed seven times during my high school years. Morale is low for all young people, but it is the people who are responsible for all this. After all, we are ruled by those we elect,” Tihminlioglu said.

Welat Aydin, a Kurdish citizen in a remote village in the southeastern province of Mardin, is concerned about the status of the Kurdish language, and a lack of resources in schools.

“We did not receive education in our mother tongue. Education is of poor quality anyway. When there is no chemistry teacher, the literature teacher takes chemistry classes. That is why I did not apply for university entrance exams. I didn’t believe I would stand a chance,” he said.

A young farmer in the southeastern province of Diyarbakir, Demhat Tari left education after secondary school, and instead traveled to Istanbul to find work.

“I was earning 1,500 Turkish lira ($320) a month which went to pay rent, water and electricity bills and no money was left. When I realized that there was no way I could save money, I returned to my village,” he said.

“There are no jobs, the dollar is on the rise, gold is expensive. As things are, I will never be able to get married.”

FOREIGN POLICY

Cag Buyurgan, who is studying for university exams and wants to be a dentist, says Erdogan’s policies have been divisive.

“If he does not win these elections, we can once again restore the unity we have lost and together solve our problems one by one,” Buyurgan said in Ankara.

Twin sisters Sinem and Simge Tuncbilek think otherwise. They say that despite Turkey’s problems, things can get back on track, and both believe Erdogan will win on Sunday.

“We stand up for one another. Sure, we have problems but these are nothing that cannot be resolved,” Sinem said.

“The name of Erdogan for us is the name of love. He is a very good father, he has stood up for the whole Islamic world. We believe in his ideal of great Turkey.”

Zeynep Arslan, a volunteer for the opposition Islamist Saadet (Felicity) Party, has been wearing a Muslim headscarf since she was 12 – a right which Erdogan’s government championed – but she faults him for his foreign policy.

“Because I’m wearing the scarf, this doesn’t mean that I must ignore the country’s problems. This government allows me to cover my head, but it doesn’t sever relations with Israel,” she said.

In the secular Istanbul district of Kadikoy, Derin Kaleli says she is losing the freedom to choose how to dress.

“I cannot wear the clothes I like. People in Europe live as they wish. Here I am not as free as I would like to be. We are becoming more and more conservative. We are worried for the future,” she said.

Takil said the new executive presidency which will be instituted following the elections would restore some of the power Turkey enjoyed as the center of the Ottoman Empire.

“This is what the West fears. All plots of the Zionists, the freemasons, and the children of evil against Turkey will be foiled,” he said.

Arslan, however, says Erdogan’s supporters are too quick to condemn all opposition as traitors, making life almost unbearable. “There is immense pressure on us. We are living in a society which is similar to George Orwell’s 1984,” she said.

(Editing by Dominic Evans and Alison Williams)

Human Rights Watch: Turkey-backed forces seizing property in Syria’s Afrin

Men walk through debris in the center of Afrin, Syria March 24, 2018. REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Turkey-backed rebels in northwest Syria’s Afrin have seized, looted and destroyed Kurdish civilians’ property after taking control of the region in March, Human Rights Watch said on Thursday.

Turkey’s military and its Syrian rebel allies launched a cross-border operation into Syria earlier this year and drove fighters from the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia out of the town of Afrin and the surrounding area.

Ankara sees the YPG as a terrorist group and an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has waged a three-decade insurgency on Turkish soil. Turkey has threatened to drive the YPG from the entire length of its border.

The United Nations said 137,000 people were displaced by the Afrin offensive, another large population movement in the seven-year long Syrian conflict which has forced more than half of the country’s pre-war population from their homes.

Rights group HRW interviewed people who had been displaced from Afrin. They accuse Turkey-backed forces of moving their fighters and people from other parts of Syria into vacated homes and of taking over business premises without paying compensation.

One interviewee, Roni Seydo, left Afrin in March but was told by a friend that an armed group had taken over his house, painting the word “seized” on the outside wall.

He said his neighbors were questioned about his family and it possible links with the PKK.

Another former Afrin resident, photographer Ser Hussein, said one of his two studios was burned down and the other turned into a butchers shop.

“Those who made the decision to take over Afrin also took on the responsibility of ensuring that both the residents of Afrin, and people there who have been displaced elsewhere have basic shelter in a way that doesn’t infringe on either of those groups’ rights,” HRW’s acting emergencies director Priyanka Motaparthy said in a report.

“So far it seems that they are failing to do the right thing by either group.”

Under the laws of war, pillaging, or forcibly taking private property for personal use is prohibited and can constitute a war crime, HRW said. The laws of war also prohibit destruction of property not justified by military necessity.

HRW said owners should be compensated for the use and damage of their property and the rights of rights of owners and returnees should be guaranteed.

Reuters was not immediately able to reach the rebel groups for comment.

HRW said the Free Syrian Army rebel umbrella group issued a statement on March 9 inviting Afrin residents to submit complaints to the military headquarters in Azaz to claim their looted property.

HRW also said rebel faction Ahrar al-Sharqiyah issued a statement on April 20 denying responsibility for property violations and looting and saying it had arrested several people who may have been involved in such acts.

Turkish officials in March said they were looking into allegations of looting and property seizure and that they would ensure Afrin would be a safe place for residents to return to.

(Reporting by Lisa Barrington; Editing by Toby Chopra)

Turkey will drain ‘terror swamp’ in Iraq’s Qandil, Erdogan says

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan addresses his supporters during an election rally in Ankara, Turkey, June 9, 2018. REUTERS/Umit Bektas

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Turkey will drain the “terror swamp” in northern Iraq’s Qandil region, President Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday, a day after the military said it hit more than a dozen Kurdish militant targets in air strikes.

Turkey’s army has ramped up operations in northern Iraq, with the aim of destroying Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) bases in the Qandil mountains, where high-ranking members of the militant group are thought to be located. At the weekend the military said it destroyed 14 PKK targets in air strikes.

“We have started our operations on Qandil,” Erdogan said during an election rally in the central province of Nigde.

“Qandil will not be a threat, a source of terror for our people any more. We will drain the terror swamp in Qandil as we did in Afrin, Jarablus, Azaz, al-Bab.”

He was referring to areas in northern Syria where the Turkish army and its Syrian rebel allies have fought against Islamic State militants and a Kurdish militia. Ankara is particularly worried about the presence of the U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish YPG militia near its southern border.

Ankara considers the militia to be an extension of the outlawed PKK, which has carried out a three-decade insurgency in Turkey’s largely Kurdish southeast. The PKK is considered a terrorist group by Europe, the United States and Turkey.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said last week that Baghdad was ready to cooperate with Ankara to prevent attacks from Iraq into Turkey. He also called on Turkey to “respect Iraqi sovereignty” and accused Turkish politicians of raising tensions for domestic purposes ahead of June 24 elections.

Erdogan has also vowed to extend military operations in Syria if need be, a stance that has caused friction with NATO ally the United States, which has backed the YPG in the fight against Islamic State.

(Reporting by Ali Kucukgocmen; Writing by Ezgi Erkoyun; Editing by David Dolan)

Austria to shut down mosques, expel foreign-funded imams

Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, Vice Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache and Interior Minister Herbert Kickl attend a news conference in Vienna, Austria June 8, 2018. REUTERS/Leonhard Foeger

VIENNA (Reuters) – Austria’s right-wing government plans to shut seven mosques and could expel dozens of imams in what it said was “just the beginning” of a push against radical Islam and foreign funding of religious groups that Turkey condemned as racist.

The coalition government, an alliance of conservatives and the far right, came to power soon after Europe’s migration crisis on promises to prevent another influx and restrict benefits for new immigrants and refugees.

The moves follow a “law on Islam”, passed in 2015, which banned foreign funding of religious groups and created a duty for Muslim organizations to have “a positive fundamental view towards (Austria’s) state and society”.

“Political Islam’s parallel societies and radicalizing tendencies have no place in our country,” said Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, who, in a previous job as minister in charge of integration, steered the Islam bill into law.

Standing next to him and two other cabinet members on Friday, far-right Vice Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache told a news conference: “This is just the beginning.”

Austria, a country of 8.8 million people, has roughly 600,000 Muslim inhabitants, most of whom are Turkish or have families of Turkish origin.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan’s spokesman said the new policy was part of an “Islamophobic, racist and discriminatory wave” in Austria.

“The Austrian government’s ideologically charged practices are in violation of universal legal principles, social integration policies, minority rights and the ethics of co-existence,” Ibrahim Kalin tweeted.

The ministers at the news conference said up to 60 imams belonging to the Turkish-Islamic Union for Cultural and Social Cooperation in Austria (ATIB), a Muslim group close to the Turkish government, could be expelled from the country or have visas denied on the grounds of receiving foreign funding.

A government handout put the number at 40, of whom 11 were under review and two had already received a negative ruling.

ATIB spokesman Yasar Ersoy acknowledged that its imams were paid by Diyanet, the Turkish state religious authority, but it was trying to change that.

“We are currently working on having imams be paid from funds within the country,” he told ORF radio.

One organization that runs a mosque in Vienna and is influenced by the “Grey Wolves”, a Turkish nationalist youth group, will be shut down for operating illegally, as will an Arab Muslim group that runs at least six mosques, the government said in a statement.

(Reporting by Francois Murphy; Additional reporting by Ali Kucukgocmen in Istanbul; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

Poll shows Turkey presidential vote going to second round

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan attends a meeting with Chairman of the Tripartite Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina Bakir Izetbegovic in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina May 20, 2018. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic

By Gulsen Solaker

ANKARA (Reuters) – Tayyip Erdogan is seen falling short of a first-round victory in Turkey’s presidential election and his ruling AK Party is forecast to lose its parliamentary majority in the June 24 vote, a survey by pollster Gezici showed on Thursday.

Erdogan called the snap elections in April, more than a year early, saying Turkey needs to switch to a powerful executive presidency to tackle economic and security challenges. The new presidential powers were narrowly approved last year.

Gezici’s survey of 6,811 respondents, conducted between May 25-26, showed Erdogan receiving 48.7 percent of votes in the first round of presidential election, with the main opposition candidate, Muharrem Ince, getting 25.8 percent.

Erdogan and Ince were followed by Meral Aksener, a former interior minister who founded the Iyi Party last year after being sacked from the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), which has entered an election alliance with the AK Party. Aksener was seen getting 14.4 percent of votes, Gezici’s poll showed.

The jailed candidate of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), Selahattin Demirtas, has 10.1 percent support, the poll showed.

Even though he is campaigning from behind bars, Demirtas, one of Turkey’s best-known politicians, is expected to boost his party’s chances of overcoming a 10 percent threshold needed to enter parliament.

PARLIAMENTARY MAJORITY

Erdogan, modern Turkey’s most successful and divisive leader, and his AK Party have ruled for more than 15 years, and currently hold a parliamentary majority.

However, Gezici’s poll showed that the AK Party’s alliance with the nationalist MHP would fall short of a majority in the 600-seat assembly, with 48.7 percent of the votes.

Their rival alliance, composed of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), Iyi Party and Saadet Party, is seen receiving 38.9 percent of votes, the poll showed, while the HDP was seen at 11.5 percent.

The HDP’s performance in the parliamentary polls is important because it does not have an alliance partner. If it fails to cross the 10 percent threshold, its seats go to the party that came second in districts where the HDP came first.

That would most likely benefit Erdogan’s ruling AKP, which is also strong in the east and the mainly Kurdish southeast.

“According to the poll, the ruling party is seen losing the parliamentary majority. Despite the alliances that will be in parliament after the June 24 elections, no single party or alliance is seen reaching a simple majority,” the poll said.

However, the polling group’s chairman Murat Gezici told Reuters that voters were not sympathetic toward alliances and that this caused the distribution of votes to vary in the poll.

Independently, the AK Party is seen getting 43.1 percent, while their nationalist partner receives 6.2 percent, still falling short of a majority in parliament but marginally higher than what the poll shows as support for their alliance.

The elections will herald Turkey’s switch to the new presidency championed by Erdogan, but an ailing economy and a deteriorating record on human rights and freedoms after a 2016 coup attempt have led to a shift of sentiment in voters, the poll showed.

“These general and presidential elections will be the most difficult elections in Turkey’s past 20 years,” Gezici said.

(Writing by Tuvan Gumrukcu; Editing by Dominic Evans)

Turkish dam project threatens rift with Iraq over water shortages

A general view shows a costruction site of the Ilisu dam by the Tigris river in southeastern Turkey, September 27, 2017. REUTERS/Umit Bektas

By Ahmed Aboulenein and Ali Kucukgocmen

BAGHDAD/ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Iraq is surprised by Turkey’s decision to start holding back water behind its Ilisu dam earlier than promised, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said on Tuesday, suggesting it was done to win support for the government in upcoming elections.

Turkey has started filling the dam basin, a step that has alarmed neighboring Iraq, which is struggling with a water crisis.

“The Turkish prime minister had promised me they would start filling the dam at the end of June, not the start, so I was surprised to see they started,” Abadi told a news conference.

“I am aware that they have elections on June 24 and perhaps need to get the support of farmers,” he added, referring to Turkey’s planned general elections for president and parliament.

Turkey’s ambassador in Baghdad said Ankara is cooperating.

“We will not take any step without consultation with the neighboring country on how we can cooperate and provide support during any problem, Fatih Yildiz told a news conference through an Arabic translator.

A spokesman for Turkey’s Ministry of Forest and Water Management spokesman said Turkey was “partially” filling the dam’s basin.

Around 70 percent of Iraq’s water resources flow from neighboring countries, especially in the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers. Both flow through Turkey.

Abadi was at lengths on Tuesday to show his outgoing government was doing everything it can to tackle the issue.

“There are plans to secure our water resources on both the domestic and foreign fronts. Yes, there is a water shortage this year, but it is not a crisis,” he said.

The government has plans to provide water to farmers, Abadi said, especially for Iraq’s strategic wheat crop. At the same time, it might reduce plots of land reserved for planting other crops that consume a lot of water.

Iraqi media suggested Baghdad had asked Ankara to delay holding back water because of its own election, which took place on May 12. Abadi’s bloc came third, but he may yet secure a second term if he gathers support from the winning groups.

The dam issue was not the only point of contention between Baghdad and Ankara on Tuesday. Abadi demanded Turkey respect Iraq’s sovereignty in its approach to Kurdish militias.

Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu had said on Monday that Turkish forces were waiting for the right time to carry out an operation in northern Iraq’s Qandil region where high-ranking members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) are located.

Soylu had said that “Qandil is not a distant target” anymore. Abadi countered that the Turks had been “talking about that for over 35 years” and again suggested the statement was an attempt to score points before the Turkish elections.

“We will not accept any violations of Iraq’s sovereignty,” he said, adding there was no military coordination with Turkey on this issue.

(Reporting by Ahmed Aboulenein in Baghdad and Ali Kucukgocmen in Istanbul; additional reporting by Maha El Dahan in Dubai; writing by Michael Georgy and Ahmed Aboulenein; editing by Larry King)

Assad raises prospect of clashes with U.S. forces in Syria

Syria's President Bashar al Assad attends an interview with a Greek newspaper in Damascus, Syria in this handout released May 10, 2018. SANA/Handout via Reuters/File Photo

By Tom Perry

BEIRUT (Reuters) – President Bashar al-Assad raised the possibility of conflict with U.S. forces in Syria if they do not withdraw from the country soon.

In an interview with Russia’s RT international broadcaster, Assad said he would negotiate with fighters backed on the ground by Washington, but would reclaim territory they control by force if necessary, whether or not American troops supported them.

Assad also responded sharply to U.S. President Donald Trump’s description of him as an animal, saying “what you say is what you are”.

Assad, who is backed by Russia and Iran, appears militarily unassailable in the war that has killed an estimated half a million people, uprooted around 6 million people in the country, and driven another 5 million abroad as refugees.

Around 2,000 U.S. special forces troops are believed to be on the ground in Syria, where they have aided a group called the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which is led by the YPG, a Kurdish militia.

The U.S.-backed group holds the largest area of Syrian territory outside government control, but has tried to avoid direct clashes with the government during the multi-sided war.

Assad said the government had “started now opening doors for negotiations” with the SDF.

“This is the first option. If not, we’re going to resort to … liberating those areas by force. We don’t have any other options, with the Americans or without the Americans,” he said in a text of the interview published by Syria’s state news agency.

“The Americans should leave, somehow they’re going to leave,” he said, adding that Washington should learn the lesson of its war in Iraq, which lasted longer and was much costlier than anticipated.

“They came to Iraq with no legal basis, and look what happened to them. They have to learn the lesson. Iraq is no exception, and Syria is no exception. People will not accept foreigners in this region anymore,” he said.

Trump said in April he wanted to withdraw American troops from Syria relatively soon, but also voiced a desire to leave a “strong and lasting footprint”.

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said on April 30 the United States and its allies would not want to pull troops out of Syria before diplomats win the peace.

Kino Gabriel, a spokesman for the SDF, said in response to Assad’s comments that a military solution “is not a solution that can lead to any result”, and would “lead to more losses and destruction and difficulties for the Syrian people”.

The SDF wants a “democratic system based on diversity, equality, freedom and justice” for all the country’s ethnic and religious groups, he added in a voice message to Reuters.

WHAT YOU SAY IS WHAT YOU ARE

Trump called Assad an “animal” after a suspected poison gas attack on a rebel-held town near Damascus in April. Medical aid organizations said the attack killed dozens of people.

The attack triggered U.S., French and British missile strikes against what they called chemical weapons targets, the first coordinated Western strikes against Assad’s government of the war. But the Western retaliation had no impact on the wider conflict, in which Assad’s forces continued their advances.

In his interview, Assad reiterated the government’s denial of blame for the chemical attack. Asked if he had a nickname for Trump similar to the “animal” comment, Assad replied: “This is not my language, so I cannot use similar language. This is his language. It represents him, and I think there is a well-known principle, that what you say is what you are.”

Assad also sought in his interview to minimize the extent of Iran’s presence in Syria. Israel, which is deeply alarmed by Tehran’s influence in Syria, said it destroyed dozens of Iranian military sites in Syria in May, after Iranian forces in Syria fired rockets at Israeli-held territory for the first time.

Assad said Iran’s presence in Syria was limited to officers assisting the army. Apparently referring to the May 10 attack by Israel, Assad said: “We had tens of Syrian martyrs and wounded soldiers, not a single Iranian” casualty.”

Asked if there was anything Syria could do to stop Israeli air strikes, he said the only option was to improve air defenses, “and we are doing that”. Syria’s air defenses were much stronger than before, thanks to Russia, he added.

(Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Toby Chopra and Peter Graff)