Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus has reiterated his country's rejection of the idea of partitioning war-torn Syria.
In an interview with Saudi-funded Arabic-language daily Asharq al-Awsat, Kurtulmus said that the Syrian people should have the final say on the fate of the Bashar al-Assad regime.
Syria has remained locked in a vicious civil war since early 2011, when the Assad regime cracked down on pro-democracy protests with unexpected ferocity.
"What is happening [in Syria] is a new Sykes-Picot agreement," Kurtulmus said, referring to the secret agreement following World War I between Britain and France that defined their post-war spheres of influence in the Middle East.
He said certain powers sought to impose a "new phase" of the agreement aimed at partitioning some countries in the region.
"The main focus of some [powers] is to divide Islamic countries along sectarian and ethnic lines in an attempt to create more problems between ethnic groups," he said.
He said certain parties were now speaking about dividing Syria into three distinct entities. "The fact is that Syria could be divided into 30 or 40 different parts," he said.
Kurtulmus called for bringing Syria’s various ethnic and religious groups together. "Our main focus is to protect Syria as a unified state," he asserted.
He said the Syrians could establish -- through a peace process -- a new regime in Syria. "But we have to maintain Syria's territorial integrity," he said.
He went on to urge different groups in Syria "to find the best way to participate in the search for a political solution" to the five-year-old conflict.
Editor's note: This article has been edited from the source material
