Turkish newspaper Hürriyet’s columnist Abdulkadir Selvi shared comments of President Erdoğan, which he stated in one of Ak Party meetings.
According to Selvi, Erdoğan said;
“I wish Assad had come to Uzbekistan, I would meet him. But he can’t get there. Because of him, because of his attitude, Syria is about to be divided. He went to war with dissidents to maintain his own power. He chose to keep his own power. He considered only protecting the areas he controlled. But he couldn’t protect large lands,”
I wish he had come to Uzbekistan, I would have met. I would say this to his face . Once we had told him that ‘Look, if you do this, Syria will be divided’. For those dissidents, they are crowded, but they have no weapons, he thought. He ignored our warnings. But he did not think that America, Russia would enter there. It chose to protect its own area of power, but failed to protect large lands of Syria.”
Another source said Erdoğan was not so dovish in the meeting. He said Erdoğan said he would say all of Assad’s mistakes to his face.
