Minister Avi Dichter: ‘Turkey Is Becoming the New Iran in Syria’
Agriculture and Food Security Minister Avi Dichter sat down with Israeli media to discuss the state of the war against Hamas and other recent developments in the Middle East such as the fall of the Assad regime in Syria.
Dichter warned about the new regime led by Ahmed al-Sharaa (also known as Abu Mohammad al-Julani) in Syria and Turkey’s growing influence in the country following the overthrow of the Assad regime.
“The new regime in Syria, people are not aware of where they come from. Abu Mohammad al-Julani, the new leader, he’s part of Al Qaeda. His spiritual leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was neck-to-neck with Osama Bin Laden. It means that when a new regime like that is leading Syria ... to believe that those people will become rabbis in the future and will lead them in the way that we expect them to do so, I doubt it.”
“They will take a few years in order to get support from Arab countries, and we can hear from Qatar and the Emirates and other countries.”
“We have to be well-prepared and to make sure that Syria is not building itself under a Sunni regime - unlike the Alawite Regime - but as Israel remains its enemy and they will allow other countries, mainly Turkey, [outside influence in Syria]. Turkey is becoming the new Iran in Syria,” Dichter added.
“Iran supported Bashar al-Assad, Turkey supports Abu Mohammad al-Julani, and as we all know, Turkey is not our best ally as it used to be before. The only difference is that Iran was not part of NATO and Turkey is part of NATO," he said. (INN/ VFI News)