The Turkish Prime Minister has claimed that the upcoming American elections are hampering America’s ability to deal with the growing crisis in Syria as the country’s attention is elsewhere and it is “lacking initiative.”
Speaking exclusively to CNN, Recep Tayyip Erdogan said: “Right now, there are certain things being expected from the United States. The United States had not yet catered to those expectations. Maybe it’s because of the elections – maybe it’s because of the pre-election situation in the States. Might be the root cause of the lacking of initiative. Nobody has spoken to us about their reasons, and they are not obliged to state anything. We are very thankful and pleased they have stated that they’re against this regime.”
At present approximately 80,000 refugees from Syria have fled to Turkey, where they are seeking sanctuary. This is expected to increase after the Syrian foreign ministry made the claim that the country had biological or chemical weapons, despite their insistence that they would not use them against their own people. They did, however, say that they would be prepared to use them against foreign attackers.
President Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria has been accused of massacring those who are opposed to his government and people who are opposed to him have called for assistance from other nations.
It remains to be seen if the claims about having weapons of mass destruction are valid.
Jon Huser
