Turkey has been hoping for a war of regime change against Syria virtually since the civil war in that nation began, and on the eve of US attacks against Syria overnight, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told interviewers he would “welcome” a US attack on Syria.
Erdogan, whose comments came in an interview on Kanal 7, said that his country was ready to “do our part” if the US put forward a plan of action to impose regime change in Syria. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson indicated earlier today that the US is in the process of doing so.
Turkey already occupies much of northern Syria militarily, after invading in August, but is also a participant in a ceasefire with the Syrian government, which they negotiated alongside Russia, so participating in the US attack would likely face serious backlash.
If the US continues to escalate beyond simple missile strikes, they would likely need to use Turkish territory as a staging area for major ground incursions. This would likely have a major impact on the rest of the Syrian war, as Turkey would doubtless condition this on the US abandoning it’s support for the Syrian Kurds.
Turkey acted in Syria only after Obama made a series of phone calls to Erdogan assuring him that the US would see Assad gone, and soon.
To Erdogan, this looks like something promised and long delayed.
Syria has become a multi-ring killing circus. I bet that even our vaunted intelligence does not know who fights whom and who supports whom today let alone make predictions for tomorrow.
If you are making Erdogon happy, then you are doing something very wrong.
What a crappy verbal diarrhoea.