Although the Turkish parliament approved the military intervention against Islamic State, prime-minister Ahmet Davutoglu stated yesterday that Turkey will provide ground troops only if the coalition will concentrate on also removing the current regime in Damascus, as stated by Global News Intelligence.
“Our position hasn’t changed. It is obvious. We will only focus on the Islamic State. We support the Syrian opposition but we will not intervene militarily against Damascus, “said Jen Psaki, spokesperson for the American State Department.
“One of our objectives is to have talks with all of our partners, including Turkey, in order to understand their point of view. But nothing has changed regarding our intentions. The talks that we had with Ankara last week stay the same,” Psaki also said.
Since the arrival of AKP in power, in 2001, the number of differences of opinion between Ankara and Washington grew. Among these, the refusal of the Turks to back the military campaign against Saddam Hussein in 2003 or the initial refusal to back the military campaign in Libya, in 2011.
