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Ambassador: â€˜Combating terrorism and all forms of radicalism is a priority for Turkeyâ€™

30 July 2014 12:30 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Rashad Suleymanov – APA. “The process of democratic transformation and changes which is going on in the large basin of the Mediterranean Sea clearly shows governments that fail to ensure their legitimacy and whose sovereignty does not rely on their people’s will are likely to harm regional peace and security”, Turkish Ambassador to Azerbaijan Ä°smail Alper CoÅŸkun told APA while commenting on the developments in Syria and Iraq.

The ambassador said the main goal of Turkey’s foreign policy is to create an environment of peace, stability, security and welfare around and support efforts made in this direction.

“Our policy regarding Syria is based on this principle. We wish the process in Syria to result in the establishment of a democratic system built upon the principle of equality of human rights and basic freedoms for all Syrian citizens without any ethnic, religious, and sectarian discrimination and ensured with constitution, corresponding to the Syrian people’s fair demands and expectations. In this framework, ensuring Syria’s national solidarity, territorial integrity, security and stability is of great importance for Turkey”.

According to the diplomat, since the very beginning, Turkey has closely observed the Syrian conflict that is included in both its foreign policy and aspect of interior security, relying on the principles of national interests, universal norms, and international humanitarian law, and made every effort to direct the conflict towards peace and stability in the short run and heal the wounds caused by a tragedy of humanity in Syria: It’s a clear example of our efforts that the Number of Syrians who were received in refugee camps in our country or settled in our cities by their own has exceeded 1 mln. and the expenses in this direction has reached 3.5 bln”.

As for the situation in Iraq, the ambassador remarked that Turkey’s support to strengthening this country’s political unity, territorial integrity, security, stability, and welfare is no secret to anyone.

“Turkey had played a major role to support such attempts. Nonetheless, as hinted in the statement lately published by your agency, the attempt of accusing Turkey for negative cases stemming from Syria’s and Iraq’s interior processes is an absurd, decisive step. Remaining faithful to its historical traditions, Turkey has vowed to stay away from ethnic and sectarian discriminations. We continue to demonstrate a principled approach towards Syria and Iraq, keeping close and equal distance to all sections in Iraq. We think that it’s possible to settle the crisis in Iraq by political means and ways for solving Iraq’s current problems will be found by a government to be built within political consensus and cover all sections of the society”.

Coskun stressed that Combating terrorism and all forms of radicalism is a priority for Turkey:

“Therefore, non-sense claims which are raised intentionally and often speculatively that our country turns a blind eye to activities of radical groups and organizations, including ISIS, does not reflect reality at all. Turkey is a country which underwent attack of Al-Qaeda terrorist organization formerly. Necessary administrative legal measures are being taken related to the persons or groupings which were defined that they prepares for committing a crime getting inspired from Al-Qaeda group and suspicious persons are directed to law-enforcement agencies. At the same time, our country fulfills its obligations on Al-Qaeda and related groups within the decisions of the UN Security Council. It’s important to prevent radicalism, restrict access of terrorist groups and groupings to different opportunities and at least render harmless these organizations in our time. For this purpose, Turkey is actively attending and supporting the international activities. As other countries, there are powers intending to use Turkey as transit country for crossing of foreign terrorists to Syria. Increasing number of non-stable and radical groupings in the regional countries is a concern for regional security, including our country. This is a global issue demanding close international cooperation. Turkey will continue to show strong position in this fight”.

At the end, the ambassador congratulated all Muslims on the occasion of Ramadan Holiday. He wished these holy days to be filled with beauties for Turkey, Azerbaijan and all Muslim world.