“The world’s most immoral man is currently occupying the Turkish prime minister’s seat. He wants to drag Turkey into a war against Syria,” said Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the leader of the Republican People’s Party (CHP), in an interview with al-Monitor on Thursday.
Kilicdaroglu also noted that Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) is playing good-cop, bad-cop with the foreign-backed militants fighting against the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
The opposition leader went on to say that the current conflict in Syria is not a threat to Turkey.
Earlier in the day, an audio recording emerged online revealing a discussion by top Turkish officials of possible military operations in Syria.
The audio file uploaded on YouTube is a recording of Turkey's intelligence chief, foreign minister and deputy head of the country’s armed forces discussing the possible assault.
Tensions between Syria and Turkey have been running high lately.
On Wednesday, Turkish army forces fired several rounds of artillery across the frontier into a border region, which is administratively part of Syria’s western province of Latakia.
The development comes after Turkey shot down a Syrian fighter jet on Sunday. Erdogan said the Syrian warplane was downed after it strayed into his country's airspace.
Syria, however, condemned the move as an act of "blatant aggression," and said the downed plane was flying over northern Syria at the time.
Syria has been gripped by deadly violence since 2011.
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