Turkish FM: Assad was a Nusayri when Turkey was on friendly terms with him

Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu went to the Moroccan capital city of Rabat yesterday to attend a Turkish-Arab forum today.  Davutoglu refuted claims that Turkey was critical of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad due to his religious background, saying that "We do not view Syria through a sectarian lens.". Davutoglu told that "Assad has been a Nusayri all along, wasn't he one when we were friends?" the foreign minister rhetorically asked to highlight that Turkey, a country populated by a Sunni majority, had a volatile relation with the Syrian regime, but that its course of action was motivated by actions and not religious backgrounds. Davutoglu's comments come a day ahead of a Turkish-Arabic gathering today in Rabat, where the fourth Turkish-Arabic Cooperation Forum is to be held with an agenda that is expected to focus on Syrian developments after the Arab League's decision on Saturday to suspend Syria as member. In Morocco, Arab foreign ministers are also scheduled to meet the Syrian National Council (SNC), representatives of which met with Davutoglu during an urgent session on Sunday. "We told the council that we would not engage with them [the SNC] unless they had the capacity to represent [the Syrian opposition]," Davutoglu said of the oppositional council, which was unified in Istanbul through a number of gatherings in the city. "But we did [talk with the SNC] when they were unified at last, and the oppositional councils set up in villages [in Syria] confirmed that they deem the council formed in Turkey as their [rightful] representative." Davutoglu added. "When we first set out to support the opposition, we thought we would make peace between Assad and the opposition once Assad gave reforms a go," the foreign minister said in an attempt to clarify the reasons why Turkey was logistically supporting the council while it refrained from intervening in its political agenda. Davutoglu also acknowledged that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told Assad that if he opted for elections, he would probably emerge victorious because his people loved him. "Instead of going for elections and asking for his people's support, he decided to point guns at his people," Davutoglu said, and blamed armed gangs in Syria for massacring civilians, a problem he relayed to Assad, who refused to acknowledge they [armed gangs] even exist in Syria.