Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told the Independent newspaper that Turkey is unable to close its 510-mile-long border with Syria, which has been crossed by thousands of foreign jihadi volunteers.
Critics of Turkish policy say that much more could be done to hinder the flow of jihadis in and out of Isis territory and into Turkey. Davutoglu said that they cannot put soldiers everywhere on the border. "In any case, there isn’t any state on the other side,” Gazeta.ru cited the prime minister.
In addition, Davutoglu expressed the opinion that Isis was the creation of the war in Iraq and the US occupation after 2003.
According to the Turkish Prime Minister, Turkey opposes both Isis and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad winning the war in Syria, and if the international community is not going to send ground troops to Syria, “the only alternative is to train and equip moderate opposition forces,” which currently don't exist.
Davutoglu also said that Turkey has a close relationship with Syria and Syrian President Bashar Assad. "I have visited there 62 times in 10 years," the prime minister noted, but bilateral relations soured in 2011, when “Assad started to kill his own people.”
