‘Turkey should not take part in Mideast proxy wars’

By Emin Avundukluoglu

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey should not try to act as a subcontractor of global powers in the Middle East, the head of the country’s main opposition party said on Tuesday.

"I ask those who rule the state that there should be no new martyrs [...] We do not want to fight with neighboring Syria," Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the leader of the Republican People's Party (CHP), told his party's parliamentary group.

Kilicdaroglu noted that Turkey “should not take part in proxy wars” in the Middle East. "Our soldiers should not pay the price for this," he added.

He also extended condolence to the nation over the martyrdom of five Turkish soldiers in an attack by the Bashar al-Assad regime forces in Idlib on Monday.

Idlib has been a stronghold of the opposition and anti-government armed groups since the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011.

In September 2018, Turkey and Russia agreed to turn Idlib into a de-escalation zone in which acts of aggression are expressly prohibited.

But more than 1,800 civilians have been killed in attacks by regime and Russian forces since then, flouting both the 2018 cease-fire and a new one that started on Jan. 12.