Radicalisation of ordinary people by Islamist jihadist groups was spreading across Syria and posed a growing risk to its neighbours and the countries of Europe, Gul said in an exclusive interview with the Guardian.
But the response of the international community – including Turkey's American and British allies – to the security, humanitarian and moral challenges posed by the crisis had been "very disappointing", he said. He reiterated his view that the UN security council's performance was a "disgrace".
In a forthright and sometimes angry critique of western policy on Syria, Gul said the deaths of more than 100,000 people, mostly civilians, in fighting over the past 32 months could have been avoided. Turkish mediation efforts early on in the war were not supported and were even undermined by western powers, he complained.
With the conflict showing no sign of ending, Turkey faces extreme instability and dislocation along its 565-mile border with Syria, the prospective radicalisation of its Kurdish, Alevi and Sunni Muslim populations, the so read of infectious diseases such as polioTBand measles, and many new additions to its current total of 500,000 Syrian refugees.
Gul said that if Turkey were attacked or Turkish territory invaded his government would respond militarily "in the strongest way possible".
"If the atmosphere remains as it is, then this can lead to more radicalisation and some groups in the civil war becoming more extreme, dividing up, not being under control, and spreading across that country. Because under those circumstances, ordinary people could become much more extreme and this is something that poses a danger and threat not just for Turkey, it's an issue for everyone. I don't think anybody would tolerate the presence of something like Afghanistan on the shores of the Mediterranean.
Asked whether the US and Britain should be doing more to end the crisis, he replied: "Frankly speaking, our expectation was different, we expected more. I think it is very disappointing to see the whole discussion reduced to a discussion solely on chemical weapons."
Gul said it was important that the proposed Geneva II peace conference, scheduled for later this month, was better prepared than its forerunner. He felt last month's London Meeting of the Friends of Syria group had been helpful. But he expressed scant hope that the next Geneva meeting would achieve a breakthrough, if and when it takes places. "The country is destroyed … There really isn't in my opinion much that can be done now."
Source: theguardian
