Monday, February 25, 2013

Turkey's Erdogan Slams "Mute Devil" Assad for Not Attacking Israel

SHARJAH, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Turkey’s prime minister denounced Syria’s leader Sunday, calling him a “mute devil” for carrying out attacks on his own people but not standing up to Israel’s occupation of Syrian territory.

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan received several rounds of applause at a government communications forum in the United Arab Emirates, which has joined other Gulf nations in backing Syrian rebels seeking to topple President Bashar Assad.

“We will not remain silent in the face of the cruel dictator, the mute devil, who mercilessly carried out massacres against his own people, but who has remained silent and unresponsive toward those who have occupied his own territories for decades,” Erdoğan told the gathering in Sharjah, just north of Dubai.

Israel captured the strategic Golan Heights plateau in 1967. Despite hostility between the two countries, Israel and Syria have not gone to war since 1973 and the border region has been generally without major tensions for decades.

More...