Hurriyet Daily News quotes Brent Scowcroft Center Chairman General James L. Jones, Jr. on Turkish involvement in the ongoing crisis in Syria:
Turkey has been hosting three key Americans over the last three days. One is Vice President Joe Biden. The second is John Allen, the U.S. Special Envoy for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) strategy. The third is General James Jones, the U.S.’s former National Security Adviser and currently the chairman of the American-Turkish Council. General Jones is in Istanbul to attend the Atlantic Council Summit, where Biden is also giving a speech.
I had the chance to have a one-hour tete-a-tete conversation with General Jones and ask him the key questions in my mind.
First of all, why does Washington not make a commitment that Bashar al-Assad must go? Does it not want to topple him anymore? “No” Jones replied. “Our objectives with Turkey are the same. We both want to see al-Assad leave, ISIL to be defeated and Iraq to survive as a unified country. Those objectives are clear and common. We are now working on how we get to those objectives.”