The U.S. is still not considering a no-fly zone in northern Syria as it might not help resolve the broader conflict in the war-torn country, President Barack Obama\u2019s national security advisor said Tuesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe do not think a no-fly zone would resolve the fundamental issues on the ground because there continues to be fighting on the ground,\u201d Ben Rhodes told reporters in Laos, where the president has been for a regional summit.<\/p>\n
\u201cA no-fly zone would necessarily only be contained to one specific area, and we have problems and violence across the country,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
According to Anadolu Agency,\u00a0Rhodes\u2019 comments came after Turkey\u2019s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan reiterated his call for a no-fly zone and the formation of safe zones for refugees in northern Syria during his China visit for the G20 summit there.<\/p>\n
Rhodes said the U.S. will continue to dedicate resources to the fight against Daesh but pointed to the importance of sealing off the Turkish-Syrian border and ridding it of Daesh in terms of preventing the flow of foreign fighters.<\/p>\n
He also commended Turkey\u2019s operations in Jarabulus to rid its border of Daesh elements, saying it \u201chas been a key priority\u201d for a long time.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we can seal that border using Turkish forces, opposition forces, with our logistical and air support, I think that would help us make a substantial gain against ISIL,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Asked whether failure to extradite U.S.-based Fetullah Gulen, leader of the Fetullah Terrorist Organization (FETO), would do irreparable harm to Turkish-American relations, Rhodes said that Washington is not ignoring Ankara\u2019s concerns.<\/p>\n
Turkey issued a formal request last month to Washington to extradite the FETO leader after the terror group attempted to overthrow the government in Ankara through a bloody coup.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s an irritant on our relationship,\u201d he said. \u201cThe fact of the matter is, though, we have a system in which the president could not simply choose to return Gulen.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rhodes said that the Justice Department has devoted considerable resources to reviewing Turkish evidence of Gulen\u2019s guilt and sitting down with their Turkish counterparts.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe’re not ignoring their concerns, we’re just saying you have to meet a legal threshold,\u201d he added.<\/p>\nError, group does not exist! Check your syntax! (ID: 10)<\/span>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" US national security advisor says there are problems and violence across Syria but no-fly zone would address a specific area.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":58399,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,80,118,14],"tags":[629,77525,18681,542,1153,9002,18432],"class_list":["post-58398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-america","category-breaking-news","category-hot","category-world","tag-barack-obama","tag-fetullah-terrorist-organization","tag-g20-summit","tag-obama","tag-recep-tayyip-erdogan","tag-syria","tag-turkish-forces"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58398"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58398\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}