Erdogan: We Talked Syria into Withdrawing from Lebanon
By Fikri Turkel
Journal of Turkish Weekly, Turkey
June 16 2005
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said, it was Turkey
who talked Syria into pulling out from Lebanon.
On his way to the Lebanese capital Beirut to attend the Arab Economic
summit, Erdogan spoke of the Syria and Lebanon-related parts of his
visit to Washington last week. Turkey supports democracy and human
rights in the region and as part of this, Turkey also talked Syria
into pulling its military out of Lebanon, Erdogan said.
“I talked to Mr. Asad about troop withdrawal. He said, ‘I need time.’
Five months later, President [Ahmet Necdet Sezer] visited Damascus.
Mr. Sezer told me, ‘Asad will pullout his troops because I talked
him into it.’ A week later, he [Asad] started to withdraw the troops.”
As for commercial relations, Turkey is not at a point to evaluate
the trading potential in the Middle East the Prime Minister thinks;
however, he will search for possibilities to assess Middle Eastern
finance in Turkey during his visit.
Before Erdogan’s trip, radical Armenians held a protest in Beirut,
burning a Turkish flag and insulting Erdogan.