World watches as Syria dies: Turkish presidential aide

ANKARA

Assad regime’s use of chemical and conventional weapons is not only killing Syrian women and children but also humanity itself is dying, Presidential aide Ibrahim Kalin said in his column on Wednesday.

Writing for the Daily Sabah, Kalin evaluated the recent incidents in Syria following the regime's chemical attack in Idlib on April 4.

"Syria is dying while 'the world is watching.' With chemical and conventional weapons used by the Assad regime, not only Syrian women and children but also our humanity is dying," he said.

The presidential aide also called out UN’s failures.

"The UN has stopped counting the dead in Syria on the grounds that the numbers cannot be verified. The reality is that the UN, like the rest of the international community and the most powerful nations in the world, has scored one failure after another in stopping the bloodiest war of the 21st century."

The attack on the town of Khan Sheikhun, Idlib, northwestern Syria -- which is blamed on the Bashar al-Assad regime -- killed some 100 people and injured more than 500 others.

Safe zone in Syria

Kalin reminded that Turkey has been proposing a safe zone in Syria since the beginning of the civil war. "Turkey's proposal to establish safe zones for the Syrians inside Syria could have saved thousands of lives and prevented chemical attacks over the last three years but it has fallen on deaf ears on both sides of the Atlantic," he said.

He added: "Turkey currently hosts around 3 million refugees and continues to provide humanitarian aid to tens of thousands of people inside Syria.

“Since the early days of the Syrian civil war, Turkey has been pushing for both of these ideas, but no country has given a reasonable argument against Turkey's proposal.”

Daesh must be destroyed

"There is absolutely no doubt that Daesh must be fought and destroyed," Kalin said, adding that this monster had already inflicted more pain and terror than it should have been allowed.

"But it is a moral scandal and a political catastrophe to turn a blind eye to the other monster of the Syrian war, including the Assad regime and its atrocities," he said.

Referring to the G7 meeting on Tuesday, Kalin said a common approach has emerged whereby Russia needs to be persuaded to change its approach to the Syrian conflict and stop its support for the Assad regime.

The G7 meeting of the world’s most industrialized countries on Tuesday called for Russia, Iran and Turkey to ensure that a Syrian cease-fire declared at the end of last year is observed.

Italian Foreign Minister Angelino Alfano said following the G7 meeting that they had failed to reach consensus over the proposed sanctions against Russia for its backing of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Moscow should not be "pushed into a corner" over the issue, Alfano added.