Erdogan: World's inaction prompted Syria move

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Monday the failure of the international community to help Turkey with millions of refugees prompted the peace operation in northeastern Syria.

Erdogan told The Wall Street Journal that no country has felt the pain of the ensuing humanitarian crisis more severely than Turkey since the Syrian civil war began in 2011.

He said Ankara reached its limits, adding the world ignored Turkey's repeated warnings of its inability to tackle the problem of caring for more than 3.6 million Syrian refugees without international support.

"My administration concluded that the international community wasn’t going to act, so we developed a plan for northern Syria," said Erdogan. "Absent an alternative plan to deal with the refugee crisis, the international community should either join our efforts or begin admitting refugees."

The president said the international community failed to prevent the Syrian crisis from pulling an entire region into a maelstrom of instability, adding that many countries have had to deal with the conflict’s negative side effects, including irregular migration and an uptick in terrorist attacks.

"Operation Peace Spring represents a second chance to help Turkey end proxy wars in Syria and restore peace and stability to the region.

The president said the European Union—and the world—should support what Turkey is trying to do.