Brussels (AFP)
Emmanuel Macron on Friday announced a "joint initiative" with Angela Merkel and Boris Johnson to meet "Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan" on Turkey's offensive in northeastern Syria.
At the end of a European summit in Brussels, the French president said he planned with the German Chancellor and the British Prime Minister to "see" in "the coming weeks" President Erdogan, "probably in London" .
He did not say when the meeting would be held when a NATO summit is scheduled for early December in the London area.
"It is important that we can meet and coordinate," including to see how to "bring Turkey back to more reasonable positions", he added, more than a week after the start of the Turkish offensive against Kurds in northeastern Syria.
For Emmanuel Macron, "what is happening" in northern Syria is "a heavy mistake of the West and NATO in the region", which questions the "functioning" of the Atlantic Alliance, whose Turkey is one of the members.
"It permanently weakens our credibility," he added.
Because "I can only note that those who win, by the law of the strongest, are Turkey, Russia and Iran," he said.
Believing that "the Near and Middle East is a strategic and neighborhood region for Europe", "we must rebuild Europe's strategic and capability autonomy," he said. Because "we can no longer be the minority partners of others, even if they are our allies," he added, referring to the United States.
Emmanuel Macron also said last week, "discovered by tweet that the United States of America decided to withdraw their troops and free the area, like everyone else."
"It's a folly to do what the Turks have been doing for several days," said Emmanuel Macron, pointing to Ankara's complicity in the resurgence of the Islamic State group in the region.
© 2019 AFP