ANKARA (Sputnik) – On Monday, US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov announced an agreement on cessation of hostilities between the Syrian government of President Bashar Assad and the armed opposition factions had been reached. The agreement will come into force on February 27.
Military action, including airstrikes conducted by Syria, Russia and the US-led coalition will continue against Daesh, al-Nusra Front, as well as other UN-designated terrorist groups.
“The ceasefire in Syria is overall positive and gives the ability to sigh to our Syrian brothers. But it gives support to the Assad regime that carries the responsibility of killing a half million of its own citizens….We fear that this agreement may lead to even more tragic consequences,” Erdogan said.
He added that the ceasefire “spreads butter on Assad’s bread and those who support him, but throws the actual Syrian population overboard.”
He claimed that such attempts had been used before but only to occupy new territories and that Turkey’s sensitivity in the issue should have been factored in when making the agreement.
According to Erdogan, the Russia-US deal should not apply to the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), whom Ankara suspects of having links to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militant group, considered a terrorist organization in Turkey.
