NATO official sees vital need for rebuilding of trust between Turkey, allies

He might have maintained his diplomatic grace, but veteran French politician Pierre Lellouche left no room for doubt in expressing his view that there is a strong need for a rebuilding of trust between Turkey and its allies in the fight against jihadists in Syria and Iraq.

Lellouche, former secretary of state for European affairs and foreign trade of France and former president of NATO's Parliamentary Assembly (NATO PA), underlined that the destruction in Syria, "which has always been a mosaic of small ethnic groups," is "abysmal," with 4 million refugees spread to neighboring countries.

"To reconstruct this would take a lot of time. There will probably be more violence as foreign fighters are coming into the country, and what I want to really insist is that we are not going to go through this enormously difficult period without trust. Trust between the allies, the Europeans and the Turks in particular," Lellouche said in an interview with the Hürriyet Daily News.

Lellouche and Guy-Michel Chauveau, member of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the French National Assembly, were in Ankara earlier this week in their capacity as members of NATO PA's Political Committee. The two held separate talks with both Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavu?o?lu and Defense Minister ?smet Y?lmaz before traveling to the southern province of Adana to visit ?ncirlik Airbase, with Ankara saying it would consider allowing its use by the international coalition against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) "only" as part of a "comprehensive process." The two MPs also visited refugee camps hosting Syrian people.

"But I sympathize with some of the interrogation I heard from my Turkish speakers today the way that America is going; we do not know either. It...