Turkey, US oppose sending foreign troops to Syria

Feb 14, 2012, 5:23 GMT

Washington - Turkey and the United States sent a clear message that the Arab League request for peacekeeping troops in Syria would be impossible without the consent of the Syrian government.

'The peacekeeping request is one that will take agreement and consensus,' US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told a press conference Monday with her Turkish counterpart Ahmet Davutoglu.

'So we don't know that is going to be possible to persuade Syria.'

She noted that Syria had already rejected that option.

The two diplomats emphasized the importance of next week's first meeting of the Friends of Syria in Tunisia, and called on the Syrian regime to heed the efforts of the Arab League to resolve the crisis.

Clinton said the regime of Bashar al-Assad should be persuaded to see the danger of its policy of attacking dissidents.

'We do not want to see a civil war in Syria,' she said.

Davotoglu said he and Clinton agreed on the need for a new humanitarian initiative 'to reach out to people who are suffering because of the shortage of food, medicine, everywhere in Syria.'

He said Turkey was launching an initiative at the Human Rights Council in Geneva to 'make this humanitarian access possible.'

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