Turkey: Deterrence failing, Ukraine crisis partly result of Syria inaction

The international community’s decision not to intervene in Syria is directly linked to the crisis in Ukraine, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour in an exclusive interview on Thursday.“Psychologically and also strategically, let me say, there is a link between the inability of international community to stop this bloodshed in Syria on the situation in Ukraine.”"The deterrence of international community has been deteriorating in last three years," he said.“So you think,” Amanpour said, “the deterrence has been deteriorating because of Syria over the last three years.”“Yeah, of course,” he responded.Davutoğlu was in London Thursday for a meeting of the “Friends of Syria”, an alliance of countries opposed to the rule of Bashar al-Assad.A U.N.-brokered attempt to get the Assad regime and opposition to negotiate a peace deal in Geneva seems to have completely fallen apart.“Something must change,” Davutoğlu told Amanpour.“A dictator who committed so many crimes against humanity cannot survive – this way or other way, he lost all legitimacy.”“If he survives today, it is not because of his success to gain the heart of the people, but it is because of the inability of international community to stop this machinery of killing.”The United States, and the West at large, has appeared reluctant to become entangled in the Syrian civil war.President Barack Obama set a “red-line” for the Assad regime – the use of chemical weapons – but when that line was crossed he opted for a Russia-brokered diplomatic deal with the Syrian regime, rather than forceful intervention.“We cannot reduce this problem only to the attitude of President Obama’s administration,” Davutoğlu said. “But in general, the international community has failed.”“United States is a leading world power, in fact the main leading world power. All of us, we have responsibility to protect the lives of Syrian citizens and the basic norms of the international community.”“If we tell to Syrian people … international community will not act because of the absence of U.N. Security Council, we will not help you and you cannot defend yourself, what is the option for them? Waiting to be killed? This should not be the option for anyone in the world.”(CNN)Bakudaily.az