Erdoğan: US needs to decide who its ally is, Turkey or PYD

Baku. 8 February. REPORT.AZ/ Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, speaking over the weekend to journalists on the return flight from his Latin America trip that took him to Chile, Peru and Ecuador, said the U.S. should decide who its regional partner is, Turkey or the terrorists in Syria, Report informs referring to the Turkish media.

He said a security summit would be held when he returned to Turkey. "I don't want the mistakes committed in Iraq repeated in Syria," adding that he saw the rejection of the resolution allowing U.S. troop deployment in Turkey and Turkish troop deployment overseas in February 2003 just before the second Gulf War as a serious mistake. 

"At the time, I was for the approval of the resolution. If you delve into the matter, you'll find out who opposed and who actively but covertly mobilized support against it. If the resolution had passed, Iraq would not be in the state it is now. Turkey would have been at the table. I then became the prime minister and President George W. Bush asked to review the resolution. It then passed but our Kurdish brothers in Northern Iraq objected. And we decided that we would not be somewhere we weren't wanted."