Senior advisor to president Erdogan launches scathing criticism against Saudi-led coalition
SANAA, Nov. 19 (YPA) -A senior Turkish official has launched a verbal attack on the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen, blaming it for the disastrous situation in the country.
Yasin Aktay, an advisor to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said the coalition “has contributed to further deepening the Yemeni crisis, and its priority was not to bring peace or stability to the Yemeni people, but to establish a government and an administration that follows it and receives orders from it.”
This was stated in an article written by Aktay entitled “Turkey’s View of Yemen in light of its experience in Libya, Azerbaijan and Somalia”, published by Yeni Şafak, a Turkish newspaper.
The article carried Turkey’s signals to intervene in Yemen in light of its experiences in the countries mentioned by Erdogan’s adviser in his article.
The Turkish official added that “the mission of the coalition in Yemen for more than five years was far from finding a solution to this crisis, and they succeeded in doing nothing but deepen the crisis further and get it to a point that makes it insoluble.”
He said the coalition was “aimed at restoring the government, but for five years they have proved incapable of overcoming the Houthis.”
He pointed out that the coalition follows a policy based on weakening the Yemeni parties, and stressed that the alliance hinders the convergence of Yemenis towards peace.
Aktay confirmed that the Saudi-led coalition’s policy is “based on dealing with all Yemeni parties as potential enemies, if not today then tomorrow. The priority of the coalition forces was never to bring peace or provide stability to the Yemeni people.”
The scathing criticism by a senior Turkish official is an important signal, as Turkey originally supported the Saudi-led invasion of Yemen in 2015, and maintains a close relationship to the Saudi-backed Islah Party in the country.
However, over the past years relations between Ankara and Riyadh have soured significantly, especially as conflicts began to flare up between Turkish-backed Muslim Brotherhood groups and Saudi-sponsored Wahhabi militants.
E.M