Will Trump Administration Close Turkish Imam #Gulen 250 Charter Schools in U.S.? @realDonaldTrump

January 28, 2017 By administrator

It is an irony that the Gülen network with their schools, charity and trade organizations was able to settle not only in Turkey but in many other countries in Africa and around the world with the help of the same Justice and Development Party (AK Parti) government when Erdoğan-led governments and the Gülen network were in a symbiotic relationship from 2002 to 2013. The relations broke down after the launch of a major graft probe in December 2013 in which Erdoğan’s ministers, officials and even family members were alleged to be involved; Erdoğan immediately denounced it as a coup attempt against him by the Gülenists.

Gülenists had poured in donations and established close relations with the Democratic administration over the years anyway. They have nearly 250 schools in the U.S., even universities; North American University in Texas, for example, recently appointed a well-known Gülenist, Ali Şerif Tekalan, as its rector. Tekalan is a former rector at Turkey’s Fatih University but is currently the subject of an arrest warrant.

The good news for Erdoğan is that the Trump administration might indeed take some steps to curb the Gülen network, at least its operations from the U.S. But it may not be in the form Turkey wants; he might take legal action against the Gülen network like other Islamist networks operating in and from the U.S.

And then comes the possible bad news. Trump and his camp might take legal action against Gülen not because the Gülen network attempted a bloody coup in Turkey but because he is running an Islamist network and because many heavyweights in Trump’s team are openly anti-Muslims terrorism,

National Security Adviser Michael Flynn thinks Islamophobia is rational. CIA Director Michael Pompeo thinks the Iranian government is “about as democratic as that of Erdoğan — both are totalitarian Islamist dictatorships.” Frank Gaffrey, who was a key person in Trump’s transition team, is the one who has been labeling Obama as a “stealth Muslim,” and he is not against “radical Islam” – he is considered anti-Islam in American politics.

Germany to scrap ‘lese majeste’ law after Erdogan row

January 25, 2017 By administrator

The German government voted Wednesday (25 January) to scrap a “lese majeste” law that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had sought to employ against a popular German television satirist.

Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cabinet decided to abolish by 1 January 2018 the rarely enforced section of the criminal code that prohibits insulting organs or representatives of foreign states.

“The idea of ‘lese majeste’ dates back to a long-gone era, it no longer belongs in our criminal law,” said Justice Minister Heiko Maas.

“The regulation is obsolete and unnecessary,” he added.

Maas said heads of state and government would still be able to defend themselves against slander and defamation “but no more or less so than any other person”.

Erdoğan had launched a criminal complaint under the law — which carries up to three years’ jail — against German TV comic Jan Boehmermann, who had insulted him in a so-called “defamatory poem”.

Erdogan plotted purge before coup, say Brussels spies

January 17, 2017 By administrator

President Erdogan blames supporters of Fethullah Gülen, the exiled cleric, for the coup, but the European intelligence concluded that it was mounted by a range of the president’s opponents
MURAT CETINMUHURDAR/AP

President Erdogan of Turkey planned to purge opposition forces in the military before July’s attempted coup, according to a secret EU intelligence report. The European intelligence contradicts the Turkish government’s claim that Fethullah Gülen, an exiled cleric, was behind the plot to overthrow the Turkish government. Ankara is seeking Mr Gülen’s extradition from the US.

The report by Intcen, the EU intelligence centre, concluded that the coup was mounted by a range of opponents to Mr Erdogan and his ruling AK Party.

“The decision to launch the coup resulted from the fears of an incoming purge. It is likely that a group of officers comprising Gülenists, Kemalists [secularists], opponents of the AKP and opportunists was behind the coup. It is unlikely that Gülen himself played…

Source: http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/erdogan-plotted-purge-before-coup-say-brussels-spies-2hh8mgx6h

Greek Cypriot President Anastasiades and Turkey’s Erdogan clash over troops on Cyprus

January 13, 2017 By administrator

The presence of Turkish troops on a potentially reunited Cyprus has split leaders taking part in UN-sponsored talks. Ankara has said a Greek Cypriot call for Turkish troops to leave the island was “out of the question.”

After a week-long conference in Geneva on the possible reconciliation of Cyprus’ Greek and Turkish halves, statements from Greek Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan have left a possible reunification in serious doubt. At the center of the disagreement are the approximately 30,000 Turkish troops stationed on the island.

“Our position remains… that we must agree on the withdrawal of the Turkish army,” Anastasiades told reporters in Geneva on Friday.

The Greek Cypriot foreign minister, Nikos Kotzias, also said there was no way to reunify the island while “occupation” troops are still stationed on it.

“A just solution [to division] means, first of all, eliminating what caused it, namely the occupation and presence of occupation forces,” Kotzias said.

At the same, Erdogan said the removal of all Turkish troops from northern Cyprus was “out of the question.”

The Turkish president’s strong words came after Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu gave reporters a more muted statement Thursday night, telling them that “the reality is that Turkey’s guarantorship is vital to Turkish Cypriot people” and that troops are “a force of stability” that must remain on the island.

The 1960 Treaty of Guarantee gave both Greece and Turkey along with Great Britain the right to intervene in the Republic of Cyprus in order to defend the new nation’s sovereignty. Ankara justified its 1974 invasion of the island on these grounds. Since then, Cyprus has remained divided between an internationally recognized Greek south and the north, which is recognized only by Turkey.

Though Greece and Greek Cypriots would like to see the guarantor system abolished, Erdogan also pushed that possibility aside.

“We have told Cyprus and Greece clearly that they should not expect a solution without Turkey as guarantor,” the Turkish leader told reporters Friday in Istanbul. “We are going to be there forever.”

Tempered optimism

Nevertheless, the Greek Cypriot president and other international leaders remain cautiously hopeful that the Geneva conference will provide clear steps to end to the island’s division.

“We are on a path that creates hope,” Anastasiades told reporters in Geneva after talking with his Turkish Cypriot counterpart Mustafa Akinci.

British Foreign Minister Boris Johnson, who also attended the conference, said real progress has been made.”

“With continued commitment and political will, I believe a historical agreement is within reach,” he said in a statement. Britain would agree to abolish the guarantor system and remove its military from the island if requested by Cyprus to do so. Cyprus was a British protectorate and Crown Colony from 1878 through 1960.

Guterres’ debut

The Geneva Conference also marked the first foreign trip of Antonio Guterres in his new position as Secretary-General of the United Nations. He said a final peace agreement was “close” but that there would not be a “quick fix,” noting that implementing and securing an enduring peace deal would take significant work.

“You cannot expect miracles or immediate solutions,” Guterres said. “We are looking for a solid sustainable solution.”

Officials from involved parties will come together again on January 18 to work on technical security issues while simultaneous negotiations over still-contested issues such as land swaps and the composition of a unified government take place.

Turkeys Have Come Home to Roost

January 10, 2017 By administrator

GAREN YEGPARIAN

BY GAREN YEGPARIAN

Given the size of Turkey’s President Erdoğan’s ego, chickens, the bird usually referred to in the saying that is this article’s title, seemed like too small of a bird. Plus, it turns out the centuries-old origin of the saying is “curses, like chickens, always come home to roost” – what is Erdoğan for Turkey but a curse?

Erdoğan’s imperial, sultanic, ambitions have led to a very dicey, possibly untenable, situation for the country he aspires to lead to “greatness” on and in an unabashedly Ottoman scale/way (remember the recent reference to a post WWI map showing parts of Iraq as within Turkey’s borders). Recent commentaries observe that all politics and policy in Turkey for the foreseeable future will hinge on and be determined by Erdoğan’s pursuit of constitutional changes creating an all-powerful presidency. This makes perfectly good sense given his behavior while in power.

The subsuming of all considerations to Erdoğan’s megalomania is expected to harm Turkey’s economy, at least over the course of 2017. Couple this with the hits Turkish tourism, a very important sector of the country’s economy, has taken recently, and you can easily imagine that the quality of life for Turkish citizens could measurably decrease. Remember that Russians were a large portion of those enjoying Turkey’s beaches. They were effectively barred from travel to Turkey in the aftermath of the downing of a Russian plane by Turkish forces. It is difficult to believe that was done without Erdoğan’s express permission, despite his protestations to the contrary.

The state of emergency declared in Turkey after the unsuccessful July coup (blamed on the Gulenists by Erdoğan) was just extended for another three months. This maintains the climate of fear and repression in the country and allows the continuation of Erdoğan’s witch hunts against the military, civil service, and media sectors of society. To date, over 41,000 people have been arrested, and well in excess of 100,000 people have been fired summarily from their jobs. These assure the sustained criticism by human and civil rights advocacy groups in and out of the country. None of this makes for an appealing environment for tourists.

Add the now frequent bombings and other mass murder attacks that have beset Turkey over the past 18 months, and you have a recipe for Europeans staying away. They were the main source of Turkey’s tourist income. And to what are the attacks attributable? Once again, it’s Erdoğan. He reignited the war against the Kurds, who are now retaliating.

But that’s not all. Daesh/ISIS is now also targeting Turkey. That band of religiously motivated fanatics (rightly) feels wronged by Erdoğan. Remember that he was surreptitiously supporting them, along with the more overt support for other, supposedly moderate, Syrian opposition groups in their battles against the Syrian government. But because of ongoing U.S. pressure, and even more so the consequences of the airplane downing and Russia’s harsh economic and diplomatic counter-measures, Erdoğan turned on his erstwhile allies. Turkey is now fighting to drive Daesh/ISIS out of their northern-Syrian positions. They are retaliating.

In the same vein, Turkey’s support of Uighurs in their anti-China efforts is also backfiring. The suspects in the latest attack on a courthouse in Smyrna (Izmir) are apparently Uighurs. If this turns out to be correct, it means these secretly trained ethnic cousins of the Turks are now turning their guns on their trainers. The irony is delectable!

Turkey/Erdoğan is in a corner. Europe has been antagonized. Russia has a tight hold on Turkey’s neck. The U.S. has been somewhat distanced, at least the outgoing administration, and there’s no telling what the incoming administration’s approach will be. Standard tensions exist with Greece. Meddling in Syria and Iraq is now blowing back. Internal turmoil is rife. Already I saw a headline asking if Erdoğan is losing his grip. That is a very legitimate question. How long will the elites of Turkey, even those who owe their positions, power, and prominence to Erdoğan and his AK Party, tolerate the costs of his pursuit for unchecked power? How long will the masses accept lesser living conditions when an improving economy was part of the reason they repeatedly voted in support of the AK Party?

Where is Erdoğan’s maneuvering room? He is probably hoping to consolidate power before people’s patience runs out. But he is heavily constrained, and much of what he has to deal with are factors he has minimal control over. Not only those mentioned above, but Syria also is an actor which can confound any moves he makes. Take a look at the map found at syria.liveuamap.com to get a better picture of who controls what. With Aleppo in government hands, will Syria now turn its guns westward to reclaim control over the rebel-held territory east of Alexandretta/Iskenderun, south of the Kurdish held “canton” of Afrin and north of Hama? Will Syria further arm/support the Kurds so the latter can drive out Turkey and the factions/forces it supports from the territory separating the Kurdish controlled cantons to its east and west? What will the Russians do, or support/prevent Syria in/from doing? How will the battle to retake Mosul impact all of this?

In light of all this, Prime Minister Yildirim’s comment on the eve of his visit to Baghdad that Turkey’s policy is to “increase the number of our friends and decrease the number of our foes” sounds more like a plea for mercy. It also sounds like a very watered down, pathetic version of former Foreign and Prime Minister Davutoglu’s “zero problems with neighbors” policy.

Most importantly, what should Yerevan be doing? It seems to me obvious to me that President Sarkissian and all relevant ministries should be working with their Russian counterparts to maximize the squeeze put on Turkey. Perhaps the screws can be tightened so much that the northwestern-most corner of Nakhichevan could be annexed by Armenia to eliminate the direct border Turkey has with that “Autonomous Republic” within Azerbaijan.

In the Diaspora, we should be advocating policies in our host countries that will keep Turkey squirming until it reforms its international and internal behavior and policies.

Turkish people had enough with Dictator Erdogan Uprising in Progress

January 9, 2017 By administrator

Riot police scuffle with protesters trying to march to the Turkish Parliament as the lawmakers gather to debate the proposed constitutional changes in Ankara, Turkey, on January 9, 2017. (Photo by Reuters)

Turkish riot police have used teargas and water cannons to scatter hundreds of people staging a protest against planned changes to the country’s constitution that would envisage expanded powers for Turkey’s president.

Violence erupted on Monday after protesters from the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), Turkish Lawyers Association and several other non-governmental organizations had gathered outside Turkey’s parliament in the capital, Ankara, to voice their anger at a new draft constitution granting additional executive powers to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The amendments had been proposed earlier in the day, aiming to hand Erdogan greater authority as president and the possibility of serving two more five-year terms in office.

“They are trying to turn the democratic parliamentary regime into a totalitarian regime,” said Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the opposition CHP leader, who was among the participants in the protest rally.

Witnesses said many of the protesters were forced back by Turkish police along a main road away from the gates to the parliament compound.

On December 30, 2016, the draft law, submitted by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), passed the Turkish parliament’s constitutional commission.

Debate on the proposals is expected to last for two weeks and upon approval by the legislature, the reformed constitution will be put to a referendum before the spring.

Supporters of the draft say such a law would enable the head of state to restore stability to the country, which has been shaken by sporadic deadly terror attacks and a botched military coup last July.

Critics, however, denounce it as a means of restoration of the Ottoman Era powers to Erdogan, whom they see as an authoritarian figure.

The draft, if approved, would allow Erdogan to stay in office for two more terms until 2029, pave the way for the abolition of the post of prime minister, in which Erdogan himself served from 2003 until 2014, and enable the appointment of vice presidents.

It will also empower the president to hire and fire ministers.

Other proposed amendments would increase the number of seats in the 550-member parliament to 600, reduce the minimum age of legislators from 25 to 18 and set parliamentary and presidential elections on the same day.

The ruling AKP, which currently has 317 seats in the parliament, needs a majority of 330 out of the 550 seats available to call a referendum on the draft law.

Erdogan Understand Turkey is a fake country Fears ‘Treaty of Sevres Conditions’

December 24, 2016 By administrator

ANKARA—Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan sounded his nationalist alarm on Thursday by claiming that current world order might force Turkey to face “Treaty of Sevres conditions,” referring to the 1920 document, which, after World War I, partitioned the Ottoman Empire granting Armenians their historical territories seized by the Ottoman Empire.

“At this critical time when there are attempts to restructure the world and our region, if we stop, we will find ourselves facing Sevres conditions,” said Erdogan, whose Thursday speech was aimed at appealing to his nationalist base.

He also used the opportunity to invoke so-called losses suffered by Turkey after the Treaty of Lausanne, which recognized the Republic of Turkey as the successor of the Ottoman Empire, and set the modern-day regional borders for most of Turkey, Greece and the Middle East, including Syria and Iraq.

“We are a nation that still lives with the sorrows of what we lost at Lausanne. To speak frankly, Turkey is going through its greatest struggle since the War of Independence. This is a struggle [to preserve] a single nation, a single homeland, a single state,” said Erdogan, who repeated calls for extending Turkey’s current borders, a move that will impact Syrian, Iraqi and Greek interests in the region.

Turkey wants arrest of 55 people suspected of financing Gulen

December 10, 2016 By administrator

Turkish authorities issued arrest warrants for 55 people, including businessmen, suspected of giving financial support to the network of the U.S.-based cleric Ankara accuses of orchestrating a failed military coup in July, broadcaster NTV said.

The businessmen suspected of being linked to the cleric’s network allegedly carried large sums of cash, which they have called a “favor”, back and forth between Turkey, Tanzania, Uganda, and Kazakhstan since 2014, NTV said.

Ankara accuses the cleric Fethullah Gulen of orchestrating the July 15 coup bid, in which rogue soldiers commandeered tanks, fighter jets and helicopters to attack the parliament and attempt to overthrow the government. Gulen, who has lived in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania since 1999, has denied involvement and condemned the coup, Reuters reports.

Police from the Istanbul financial-crimes unit conducted operations in 57 separate addresses on Saturday to root out sympathizers of Gulen, NTV said. Authorities have detained some of the suspects in the operations, while others are still being sought, NTV said, adding that some were found to be using Bylock, a smartphone messaging app which Ankara says was used by Gulen’s adherents as a communication tool.

Turkey has so far jailed some 36,000 people pending trial and has suspended or dismissed more than 100,000 people from the military, judiciary, public service and others in the crackdown.

Turkey’s Western allies have voiced concern at the extent of the purges under President Tayyip Erdogan, who has repeatedly rejected such criticism, saying Ankara is determined to root out its enemies at home and abroad.

Turkey classified Gulen’s movement, which espouses philanthropy, interfaith dialogue and science-based education, as a terrorist network in July 2015. It says Gulen’s followers spent four decades infiltrating the bureaucracy and security forces in a bid to eventually take control of the state.

WikiLeaks publishes an authoritative, searchable archive of 57,934 emails Erdoğan’s son-in-law Berat Albayrak,

December 5, 2016 By administrator

erdogan-son-in-law Today, Monday 5 December 2016, WikiLeaks publishes an authoritative, searchable archive of 57,934 emails from the personal email address of Berat Albayrak, who is President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s son-in-law and Turkey’s Minister of Energy.

The emails span sixteen years from April 2000 to 23 September of this year (including the 15 July coup d’état) and are mostly correspondence between Albayrak and the ruling Turkish elite: politicians, businessmen and family members. The emails reveal the extensive influence Albayrak has over a wide range of areas of Turkish politics and life.

On 23 September, Redhack, a Turkish hacktivist group, announced they had obtained Albayrak’s emails and would release them on 26 September, unless the government released imprisoned leftists, specifically naming Aslı Erdoğan (no relation) and Alp Altınörs (assistant co-chairs of Halkların Demokratik Partisi (HDP) arrested on 16 September). When nothing was done, Redhack placed the archive on Google Drive and Dropbox. The Turkish government then censored normal internet access to Google Drive, Dropbox, Microsoft Cloud and Github, and arrested a number of alleged Redhack suspects. Reportage on this valuable archive has been previously hampered by censorship and lack of an authoritative, searchable, citable archive.

The emails detail Albayrak’s involvement in organisations such as Powertrans, the company implicated in ISIS oil imports. On 11 November 2011, the Erdoğan government passed a bill prohibiting all import, export, or transfer of oil or its by-products into or out of Turkey. But the bill also stated that the government could revoke the ban in specific cases. This exception was used to grant Powertrans the sole rights to oil transportation without holding a public tender. There have been numerous allegations in the Turkish media about Powertrans’ imports of ISIS-controlled oil to Turkey. Albayrak has repeatedly denied his connection to Powertrans, but the emails prove the opposite.

In one email, Albayrak discusses with his lawyer publicly denying any connection with Powertrans. The lawyer proposes a statement saying “my client no longer has ties with Powertrans…”. Albayrak “corrects” him, saying “what do you mean no longer? I never had ties with this company!” . However, throughout the archive it is clear that Albayrak started being involved in Powertrans in 2012, coinciding with the government’s decision to give Powertrans the rights of oil transportation. The archive contains almost 30 emails exchanged between Albayrak and Betul Yilmaz, the human resources manager of Çalık Holding, a conglomerate of which Albayrak was Chief Executive Officer. Yilmaz seeks approval from Albayrak regarding Powertrans personnel decisions, such as who to hire , and approval of Powertrans salaries .

The archive also shows attempts to control the Turkish press and social media in favour of the ruling AKP party.

In 2013, when large demonstrations against Erdoğan began, some AKP officials were concerned about the growing role of social media in the protests. A number of emails show that since the 2013 Gezi Park protests the AKP has invested in controlling social media, including hiring people to work on Twitter to influence messaging on the platform, despite blocking normal internet access to it for those within Turkey. In 2013 the Wall Street Journal also claimed that the government had formed a 6,000-strong social media team

The emails show that the AKP set up two teams to insert their own propaganda into social media platforms. The proposal for one team consists of coders, graphic designers, script writers and two experts on psychological warfare . A larger team consists of Twitter bot accounts that receive and spread pro-Erdoğan messages on social media . On 28 June 2013 the team initiated one of its first planned hashtag campaigns, “#DirenÇözüm”, using the protestors’ keyword “diren” (“resist”), while also suggesting that government wants a peaceful solution. In this email the team sends the hashtag and six possible messages for the AKP trolls to use .

According to an 11 January 2016 email, Albayrak was lobbying to keep the third most popular media group in Turkey, Ipek, either under the control of the government or to be sold to a business group close to the government, instead of being returned to its rightful owners . The Ipek Group had been seized by police in October 2015.

The email archive details the Turkish government’s crackdown on the media, and shows how serious the situation in Turkey really is.

Last year the situation deteriorated further when Turkish police commandos uploaded videos of themselves killing people and destroying homes onto social media during the Turkish government’s relaunch of armed confrontations against the Kurds. Many Turkish media outlets, already powerless to report on this brazen illegality, became particularly vulnerable just before the November 2015 elections after the break-up of the coalition of the AKP and the Gülen movement, when the government proceeded to forcefully take over Gülen-aligned media.

With this came the new strategy of seizing critical media by force and assigning control to a government-appointed “trustee”. In 2016, especially after the failed coup, police raided nearly every media holding. Özgür Gündem, which is the most widely read newspaper of the Kurdish freedom movement, was raided and shut down on 16 August. Aslı Erdoğan, who served as an advisory board member and columnist, was arrested immediately afterwards on 19 August. People who showed solidarity against the media crackdown were jailed too, including Necmiye Alpay, a renowned linguist and writer, on charges of “being a member of an armed terrorist organisation” (PKK) and “subverting the unity and integrity of the State”.

IMC TV, the most watched TV channel in northern Kurdistan, had its uplink in Istanbul turned off by the police on 4 October 2016. Dozens of TV and radio stations have been shut down in Turkey over the past few months, including a Kurdish-language cartoon channel for children, on grounds of supposed links to terrorist organisations such FETO (Gülen) or the PKK (Kurds). One of the most recent blows was against the Cumhuriyet newspaper, one of the oldest in Turkey with links to Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi (CHP), Turkey’s main opposition party, which had all its prominent writers arrested on 31 October. As a result, at present there is almost no critical media left in Turkey. Social media, which might otherwise fill the void, is heavily censored or flooded with AKP-aligned trolls and bots.

WikiLeaks has also been at the receiving end of the AKP government’s censorship push. In August this year, following the failed coup, WikiLeaks published the ruling AKP party’s email database, after which the government issued a decree the same day blocking Turks from accessing the wikileaks.org site. WikiLeaks remains banned to this day. A propaganda effort was subsequently launched to falsely claim that WikiLeaks had published the records of “millions of Turkish women”, which was then widely disseminated by western liberal press eager to distract from WikiLeaks’ exposures of Hillary Clinton.

The attack on critical media was followed by a crackdown on opposition MPs. In a midnight operation on 4 November, Turkish police arrested 11 MPs of the Kurdish political party HDP, including the party’s co-chairs Selahattin Demirtaş and Figen Yüksekdağ.

The Redhack leak was briefly publicised and led to the resignation of Mehmet Ali Yalçındağ, who was one of the head executives of the biggest media conglomerate in Turkey Doğan Medya, due to the documented collaboration between him and Berat Albayrak . However, after the emails largely disappeared from the internet and the escalation of the Turkish government crackdown on the media, the emails had been effectively suppressed.

WikiLeaks’ publication of the archive today ensures the safekeeping of this historical record and the public’s proper access by making it readily searchable and citable.

WikiLeaks’ editor Julian Assange said: “The people of Turkey need a free media and a free internet. The government’s counter-coup efforts have gone well beyond their stated purpose of protecting the State from a second Gulenist coup attempt and are now primarily used to steal assets and eliminate critics. The Turkish government continues to use force to jail journalists, shut down media and restrict internet access to its citizens, depriving them of their ability to access information about their situation including by banning WikiLeaks. This consolidation around the power vertical of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan ultimately weakens Turkish institutionalism, leaving Turkey more susceptible to future coups by those in Erdoğan’s chain of command.”

Source: https://wikileaks.org/berats-box/article

Only one man Erdogan fear is Putin, backtracks on Syria Assad removal after calling with Putin,

December 1, 2016 By administrator

Turkey’s military operation in northern Syria does not target any country or individual, and is aimed only at terrorist groups, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said. He had earlier stated that Turkey was in Syria to “end the rule of the cruel Assad.”

“The aim of the Euphrates Shield Operation [in northern Syria] is not any country or person, but only terrorist organizations,” Erdogan said Thursday, as quoted by the Hurryiet Daily News.

“No one should doubt this issue that we have uttered over and over, and no one should comment on it in another fashion or try to derail it,” he added.

The latest comments come in contrast to remarks Erdogan made on Tuesday, when he said Turkey’s operation in Syria, launched in late August, aimed “to end the rule of the tyrant [Syrian President] al-Assad who terrorizes with state terror.”

This drew surprise from Russia, which asked for clarification of the remarks.

According to Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov, this was provided when Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish leader Erdogan discussed the issue by phone on Wednesday.

“I can only say that a telephone conversation between our president and Erdogan took place yesterday, and the topic [of Turkey’s presence in Syria] was addressed. Yes, he [Erdogan] gave an explanation,” Ushakov told reporters on Thursday, without elaborating.

On Thursday, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said that Ankara’s operation in Syria is aimed at combating Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) terrorists and other armed terrorist groups.

Currently, in the framework of the ‘Euphrates Shield’ operation we are specifically working with our partners and allies. Our goal is to clear Syria, this region, from Daesh [Arabic pejorative term for Islamic State], from terrorists and Al-Nusra [Front] insurgents,” Cavusoglu said, speaking at a joint press conference with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in the Mediterranean town of Alanya.

“We will continue to pursue a policy that is harmonic and coincides with the position of Russia – to search for and find a political solution to the conflict and to provide systematic humanitarian assistance,” Cavusoglu added, as quoted by the Interfax.

He stated that Turkey’s policy on Syria “remains unchanged.”

“We are cooperating with other countries, but we think that our close cooperation with Russia will provide greater benefits,” Cavusoglu said.

Without a political solution on Syria, the fight against IS may prove ineffective, the Turkish foreign minister acknowledged following the meeting with his Russian counterpart.

Lavrov stressed on Thursday that he expected close Russia-Turkey cooperation on Syria to help make a real contribution to the implementation of decisions by the international community.