Turkish president slams Russia for backing Assad

ANKARA, Turkey: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has accused Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government of “mercilessly” killing 400,000 people and criticized Russia for backing him.
Erdogan was speaking to reporters on Tuesday before departing for Saudi Arabia for a visit that would focus on Syria, the fight against terror and energy cooperation. Turkey is intensifying efforts to diversify its energy supplies since a rift with Moscow over the downing of a Russian plane.
“You cannot go anywhere by supporting a regime that has mercilessly killed 400,000 innocent people with conventional and chemical weapons,” he said in a comment apparently directed at Moscow.
Erdogan also accused countries of “adding fuel to fire” by backing Syrian Kurdish fighters, which Turkey considers as terrorists because of their links to Turkey’s outlawed Kurdish rebel group.
He said comments at the weekend from the leader of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) were a “clear provocation” and the party “will be taught a lesson” by the people and the law.
Erdogan’s broadside at HDP chief Selahattin Demirtas could further widen the gulf between the government and the Kurdish opposition. A Turkish prosecutor opened an investigation into Demirtas after he made calls for greater Kurdish self-governance, Dogan news agency reported on Monday.
Demirtas was a participant in a two-day congress of Kurdish groups this weekend that called for more self-governance. At the conference, he said there would be a Kurdistan in the next century and it could include an independent state.
Turkey’s government is opposed to a separate Kurdish state. There is an autonomous Kurdish entity known as the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in neighboring northern Iraq.
Violence in Turkey’s mainly Kurdish southeast has flared up since the collapse of cease-fire in July. Fighting has been particularly intense in the last two weeks and the military says more than 210 Kurdish militants have been killed.
The HDP says civilians are also dying, something the government denies.