ANKARA
A number of Turkish experts told The Anadolu Agency that Turkey's support for the Saudi operation in Yemen was not sectarian in nature, but a result of a policy of stability and balance.
Mehmet Sahin, vice president of the Turkish think-thank Institute of Strategic Thinking, said the operation aims to maintain peace in the region.
"Iran endangered the region's security in a disproportionate and uncontrolled way in the aftermath of its occupation in Iraq and that escalated tension in the region," said Sahin. "Turkey is against every kind of act that will deteriorate stability in the region and, in this respect, its support for the operation is not a sectarian attitude."
He added that Turkey was following a policy to maintain balance in the region, saying President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's remarks for logistic support in the operation were an indication of non-lethal military equipment.
Muhittin Ataman, deputy general coordinator of the Foundation of Political, Economic and Social Research think-tank, said the operation came after Iran's increasing revisionist policies and expansionist discourse in the Middle East.
Ataman said Turkey had not intervened in Syria despite long-standing instability and it will not directly intervene in Yemen either.
"Turkey will provide assistance parallel to the West, which might be indirect," Ataman said.
Tayyar Ari, a professor at Uludag University, said Iran's expansionist policy in the region irritated the Arab and Muslim world and Yemen's Shiite Houthi militant group, backed by Iran, sabotaged the political transition process of the country.
"The United Nations also condemned the Houthi movement," Ari said.
Ari added that permanent peace in the region could only be maintained through dialogue and cooperation, not by military intervention.
Saudi Arabia said that a series of airstrikes, launched late Wednesday night, were in response to calls by Yemeni President Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi for military intervention to "save the people of Yemen from the Houthi militias."
