PARIS, ANKARA
Turkey cannot agree to de facto borders in Syria or Iraq, and the terrorist Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant will not be able to realize such an aim, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said.
"Turkey cannot say 'yes' to any de facto borders in the Middle East. Steps to be taken in that regard are of the utmost importance," Erdogan said in an address at the prominent French think tank IFRI on Friday.
"I do not believe that ISIL could achieve such a result in Syria and Iraq. I hope that the peoples of both Syria and Iraq will succeed at the end of all this," he continued.
The U.S. is leading an international coalition, which includes France, Germany, and Saudi Arabia, among others, and has carried out numerous airstrikes against ISIL in Iraq and Syria.
Syrian Kurdish fighters, predominantly from armed units affiliated to Democratic Union Party -- an offshoot of the terrorist Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK -- are fighting against ISIL in Kobani, a town bordering Turkey.
Turkey has recently allowed the passage of Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga forces through Turkey to reach the battle-torn town.
The first batch of Kobani-bound peshmerga troops landed on a private plane at Turkey's GAP Airport from Erbil International Airport early on Wednesday.
They were then stationed in the Suruc district of Turkey's border province of Sanliurfa.
A separate truck convoy carrying their heavy weaponry also entered Turkey on Wednesday via the Habur border crossing in the southeastern province of Sirnak.
Erdogan also mentioned the solution process to end PKK terrorism during his talk, saying that the process is continuing despite the damage dealt by several provocations.
"The biggest damage was made during the Kobani protests, causing the deaths of 40 people," the president said.
Fatal protests started throughout Turkey under the pretext that Turkey had not done enough to halt ISIL attacks in Kobani early in October.
The first calls for protests were made by the leftist and pro-Kurdish Democratic People's Party, or HDP.
At least 38 people and two police officers died by the end of the protests.
The solution process refers to the Turkish government’s efforts launched early last year to secure an end to the decades-long conflict with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, which has claimed the lives of more than 40,000 people.
PKK attacks have included the killing of three Turkish soldiers and one sergeant in the southeastern province of Hakkari and Diyarbakir last week, and the hijacking of about 400 kilograms of explosives from a private coal mine in the southeastern Sirnak province on Monday.
Turkey’s EU accession process:
Referring to Turkey's moves to join the European Union, Erdogan said he had asked his French counterpart to lift his country's block of four chapters of the accession process as Turkey had fulfilled all the requirements for them.
Turkey, which first applied to join the bloc in 1987, must comply with 35 "chapters" of reforms.
So far, 14 have been opened, while 17 remain blocked and a further four have yet to be discussed.
Erdogan said that Hollande had given a "green light: but in a "foggy" way.
“ I hope that he will be less vague so I can go back to Turkey today with the good news that those chapters are unblocked," he said.
However, Hollande said it was possible for his country to “open” the chapters, but he gave no precise date or details.
The chapters blocked by France are on “economic and monetary policy”, “agriculture and rural development,” “institutions” and “financial and budgetary provisions".
Turkey's EU Minister and Chief Negotiator Volkan Bozkir said during a visit to Paris on Tuesday that his country had embarked on a set of reforms in order to advance the EU accession negotiations.
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