'US needs Turkey's backing for presence in Syria'

By Emin Avundukluoglu

ANKARA

The deputy chairman of the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) said on Monday that the U.S. will need Turkey’s backing for staying in Syria after Daesh is defeated in the region.

Speaking to journalists in the parliament, Ozturk Yilmaz called on the U.S. to cooperate with Turkey ahead of the Syrian peace talks in Geneva.

“The U.S. will need Turkey and Turkey’s backing for staying in Syria after Daesh,” said Yilmaz.

He added that this could lead to diffusing of tensions between the two countries.

Thirty-six members of Syrian opposition’s High Negotiations Committee will attend the peace talks in Geneva this week.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iranian leader Hassan Rouhani in the Black Sea resort city of Sochi to discuss Syria, last week.

During the meeting, the three leaders agreed to gather a congress of Syrian groups to advance a political solution for the war-torn nation.

Ozturk Yilmaz recalled that Iran, the Bashar al-Assad regime and Hezbollah did not want the presence of the U.S. in Syria's future.

He added that only PKK/PYD/YPG terrorist group wants U.S. presence in Syria "which will not be at the solution table" in Geneva.

"For this reason, the U.S. needs a powerful regional partner, which is Turkey," said Yilmaz.

Yilmaz also urged Turkey and the U.S. to take a joint step for the territorial integrity of Syria.

The PYD and its military wing YPG are Syrian branches of the PKK terrorist network, which has waged war against Turkey for more than 30 years.

While recognizing the PKK as a terrorist group, the U.S. has treated the PKK/PYD as an ally in its anti-Daesh efforts.

Syria has only just begun to emerge from a devastating civil war that began in early 2011 when the Assad regime cracked down on pro-democracy protests with unexpected ferocity.

Since then, hundreds of thousands of people have been killed in the fighting and more than 10 million displaced, according to claims by the UN.