US, Turkey still ‘dedicated’ to Assad fall

An American foreign policy expert says the United States and Turkey are still dedicated to the ouster of the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

James George Jatras, former US Senate foreign policy analyst, made the remarks in a phone interview with Press TV on Thursday while commenting on a Washington Post report which says Turkey and the US are at odds over Syria.

“[T]he divergence of views between Washington and Ankara is a drama that’s been played along for several years now,” Jatras said.

“There are differences of opinion of Gaza; there are certainly differences over Syria. However, Turkey seems to be something of an addiction that Washington seems unable to break,” he added.

Syria has been gripped by deadly violence since 2011. The United States and some of its regional allies — especially Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey — have been supporting the militants operating in Syria.

“Given the lack of options in the greater Middle East, Turkey still seems to be regarded as the essential country even though the policy direction Washington and Ankara seems to be less and less compatible,” Jatras said.

“So we have to wait and see that to what extent this current diversion will be more significant than it has been in last few years. Whether this will help Syria or the Damascus government or not is not certain,” he noted.

“In principle still both Washington and Ankara are dedicated to the removal of the Assad government, although Turkey is more insistent on it. We have to see how this plays out,” the analyst concluded.

The ISIL terrorists, who were initially trained by the CIA in Jordan in 2012 to destabilize the Syrian government, now control large swaths of territory in Iraq and Syria.

Since late September, the US and some of its Arab allies have been carrying out airstrikes against ISIL inside Syria without any authorization from Damascus or a UN mandate.

The Pentagon also plans to train and arm 5,000 militants in Syria as part of the Obama administration’s long-term strategy to confront ISIL.

Some analysts have long maintained that the United States and its allies have seized on the ISIL threat to target the Syrian government. The US and its allies have been accused of funding and arming the insurgency in Syria.

Alan Sabrosky, a US Marine Corps veteran, has said that the United States’ airstrikes in Syria often target militants with “no military value” and actually aim at the country’s infrastructure.

GJH/GJH