US Ambassador to Ankara Francis Ricciardone said his country is against violence by terrorists in Egypt.
“We stand against terrorist violence in solidarity with all the Egyptian people in a principled, sensitive and sympathetic manner in their time of suffering and conflict,” he said.
Regarding the Syrian issue, Ricciardone told the Turkish Daily Sabah in an interview published on Wednesday that the US administration “doesn't see external military intervention as the solution to Syria's civil war. Indeed, foreign military support to the regime's killing machine is only creating more deaths, more refugees, more suffering for the Syrian people.”
He also expressed cooperation with Turkey to protect borders against passage of foreign terrorist groups coming from Syria. “American and Turkish law enforcement and other national security agencies consult and collaborate very closely to strengthen Turkey's borders against the transit of foreign terrorists and support for them into and from Syria.”
Ricciardone, who previously worked as ambassador to Cairo, said “citizens in any modern democracy naturally expect that serious charges of massive corruption will receive the most rigorous investigation and public scrutiny, through adversarial parliamentary debate and inquiry, through free and even aggressive independent media and certainly by the legal system.”
Regarding the accords signed between Ankara and Kurdistan Regional Government, Ricciardone said, “In general, we support any initiatives toward that objective and oppose any actions that might imperil Iraqi national unity and territorial integrity.”
Edited translation from MENA
