In the past, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan never missed an opportunity to thrash Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, calling him the “brutal dictator who kills his own people.” These days, however, Erdogan has been noticeably low-key in his criticism of the Syrian leader as his regime pounds Aleppo and, according to independent observers, commits war crimes. It is not difficult to fathom the reason behind Ankara’s reticence to take a tough line in keeping with its stance against such attacks in the past: Russia is also involved in the brutal operation against Aleppo. 

During an Oct. 1 address to parliament marking the opening of the new legislative year, Erdogan only touched on the situation in Aleppo once in passing, without mention of anyone specifically while laying blame in general terms on the West.

“Those countries and societies that are merely watching the brutality as every innocent life is extinguished among the ruins of Aleppo will have to account for this in the face of history,” Erdogan said. He made no other reference to Aleppo although it was the topic dominating world headlines.

Erdogan preferred instead to talk at length about the Turkish military's operation in northern Syria, where it is backing fighters from the Free Syrian Army (FSA) against the Islamic State (IS) and the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG), the military wing of the Democratic Union Party (PYD), which Ankara accuses of being a terrorist group linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).