President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his country shouldn’t repeat in Syria the same mistake it made when it turned down a U.S. request to join the coalition that toppled Saddam Hussein.
Gulf states, meanwhile, said they’d send ground troops into Syria, where military gains led to the breakoff of already troubled peace talks between the government and rebels.
“We don’t want to fall into the same mistake in Syria as in Iraq,” Erdogan said, recounting how Turkey’s parliament denied a U.S. request to use its territory for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. “It’s important to see the horizon. What’s going on in Syria can only go on for so long. At some point it has to change,” he told journalists on the return flight from a tour of Latin America, according to Hurriyet newspaper.
Opposition forces supported by Turkey and Saudi Arabia are losing more ground to the troops of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who is backed by Hezbollah militants and Russian airstrikes. Turkey has repeatedly urged the U.S.-led coalition fighting Islamic State militants in Syria and Iraq to increase its support for moderate rebel groups seeking the ouster of Assad.