In respect of our 33 martyrs

Turkey had given the Assad regime until the end of February to withdraw from the Idlib region, which had effectively become a safe zone and refuge for the Syrian people fleeing oppression, and whose attacks on it, in disregard of the Sochi and Astana understandings, had displaced more than a million people. The treacherous attack Assad carried out just one day before this period ended, which led to the martyrdom of 33 of our soldiers and the wounding of many, has set off a new process on Idlib, one in which the matter will not remain limited to Idlib. It appears that this new process will not remain limited to Idlib, nor to the current parties of the matter.

Turkey's wish for the Syrian regime to stay away from Idlib is an extremely reasonable, even necessary demand in the context of the Sochi and Astana processes. For the Syrian regime shows not the slightest mercy to the people it sees as opposed to it, and the only behavior it knows toward them is massacre.

In this state, leaving aside that it has lost its legitimacy to the full, what stands before us is a criminal-dictator for whom even living in this world as a criminal against humanity has become dangerous. Protecting the innocent people of Syria against the criminal Assad regime is the duty of all humanity. The neglect shown in fulfilling the requirements of this duty is gradually heading toward the destruction of the entire Syrian people.

The dirty and disgusting victory the Syrian regime currently intends to secure by destroying all its opponents amounts to a sovereignty to be established over a land emptied of people. Whatever kind of perverse conception of sovereignty this is, it can satisfy both Russia, which supports it, and Iran, which claims an Islamic Revolution, and they spare their support to the very end.

However indifferent others may be able to remain, Turkey does not have the luxury of being indifferent to these crimes against humanity. Both because of the humanitarian dimension of the matter, and because of the security threats these crimes directly open up for Turkey, and also because of the dimension of the violation of the agreement they themselves put their signature to.

The outcome of the massacre of humanity that has been going on for 9 years in Syria is evident. This massacre has pushed 4 million asylum seekers into Turkey. To show that this situation cannot be tolerated any longer, Turkey set out its stance in the Astana and Sochi processes and, to ensure that the opponents in Syria stay safely inside Syria rather than in another country, worked out and had accepted the terms of a special status for Idlib. Thus the population of Idlib, which became the refuge of opponents fleeing the regime's crimes in Syria, rose from one million to 4 million.

After the regime destroyed all its opponents in the rest of Syria, it this time set its eyes on Idlib. It became clear from the attacks it has been carrying out for some time under the pretext "there are terrorists" that its goal was to subject its opponents to genocide. As a result of the genocide it has carried out together with its patrons, over a million children, elderly people and women piled up at the Turkish border in a short time, in utter destitution.

In fact, there can be no pretext to justify the formation of this scene. Neither terror nor war. The fight against terror has an honor, a rule, an ethic, and so does war. Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov, by saying "we cannot ban the Syrian regime from taking the measures it wants within the scope of fighting terrorists," has openly approved and supported these crimes against humanity. Yet there can be no greater terrorist than those who have caused this scene, and this terror threatens Turkey as much as it does the Syrian people.

The refugees the regime has piled on Turkey's borders now constitute a first-degree security threat for Turkey, and it has become inevitable for Turkey to set up the front in Idlib to eliminate this threat.

Although the attack that caused our 33 martyrs was organized by the regime, it is clear that it could not have been carried out with the means of the existing regime without Russian and Iranian support. Even so, it is significant that Russia has not been able to claim responsibility for this attack. With the rightfulness that the blood of the martyrs shed gives it, Turkey now has more say and more right in Idlib, and even in the whole of Syria. With this rightfulness Turkey will have the final word and will put all its strength into Syria's design from now on. Russia has so far felt no shame about shedding Syrian blood, which it has regarded as cheaper than water, but it will have to feel the guilt of having shed, or having helped shed, the blood of our soldiers, and to pay the price.

The first step will of course be to return to the limits of the Sochi agreement, but it will not stop there. The fight against terror cannot be this reckless, it must not be; Russia now needs to see this. It must give up civilian massacres, at its own whim, and especially under the pretext of fighting those whom the criminal dictator Assad, whom it protects, calls terrorists. The whole world needs to see this truth and rise in an uprising of conscience about it.

Along with this, the price that Turkey, which has given martyrs on Syrian soil, wants inside Syria is nothing other than, first of all, securing a safe place for the whole of the Syrian people. This demand may perhaps be too much for the criminals who regard shedding blood as a sign of power and sovereignty and cannot bear to see an opponent, but this is the truth.

Turkey is still at this point: the territorial integrity of Syria, and the establishment of a secure and stable order that will embrace the whole of the Syrian people without any distinction and ensure the security of the life, property and honor of all.

Unless Syria attains such an order, in its present state it poses a real threat to Turkey, and Turkey will now do what is necessary to eliminate these threats from a position more rightful and stronger than ever.

I wish God's mercy upon our soldiers who were martyred in Idlib, condolences and patience to their relatives, and a speedy recovery to our wounded.

May our nation be well in its grief.