Turkey Increases its Role in the Coalition Against ISIL

• 03.03.2015, 19:11
•  Region,  World

Turkey and Saudi Arabia have agreed to strengthen their support of the Syrian opposition. The agreement was reached during the meeting of the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan with Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud in Riyadh. According to Anadolu Agency, besides the crisis in Syria, the two leaders discussed the situation in Iraq, Palestine, Egypt, Yemen. During the negotiations the sides also discussed the question of strengthening the cooperation between the two countries in the fields of economy, security and defense issues.

It should be noted that earlier the United States and Turkey announced that they are ready to sign a memorandum on the program of training and equipping of the Syrian opposition. Turkish media informed about plans of Turkey and the US on training 2000 fighters of the Free Syrian Army in the province Kirşehir in central Turkey. The United States will provide weapons and ammunition for equipping the militants. The Turkish military will conduct the training. According to several sources annually US is going to train and equip 5,000 militants of the Free Syrian Army - 2000 of them in Turkey. Saudi Arabia and Qatar are also part of this program.

In addition to this Turkey is going to increase its support to the international coalition against ISIL. Turkey will continue to assess its "further contribution" to an international military operation to retake Mosul from ISIL, Defense Minister İsmet Yılmaz stated, Hurriyet reports. Ankara is currently planning to provide training to members of some Sunni tribes around Mosul as part of efforts to degrade and defeat jihadists in northern Iraq. Turkey is part of the collation against ISIL and "has started to make a concrete contribution. We’ll carry out the evaluation for further contribution in due course, based on our national interests. Ultimately we’ll fulfill our responsibility as a coalition member," - Yılmaz told reporters.