Erdogan ‘Still Hopeful’ About Reproachment with Syria’s Assad
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan expressed optimism Wednesday about further reconciliation with Syrian President Bashar Assad to resolve longstanding tensions between their countries, Turkish state-run media reported.
Speaking to journalists following his visits to the COP29 climate conference in Azerbaijan and the Arab League-Organization of Islamic Cooperation summit on Gaza in Saudi Arabia, Erdogan emphasized that normalizing relations could stabilize Syria and secure its territorial integrity.
“I am still hopeful about Assad,” Erdogan said, adding he believed it was possible to get “Syria-Turkey relations back on track.”
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Turkey, which backed anti-Assad rebels at the onset of the 2011 Syrian civil war, still conducts military operations in Syria’s northwest. The Turkish military and Ankara-backed insurgent groups also still directly administer swaths of nominally Syrian territory.
While Erdogan confirmed readiness “to launch cross-border operations [into Syria] at any time,” he insisted Turkey’s focus is on protecting borders and countering groups such as the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, and Syrian Kurdish factions, including groups under the umbrella of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which he labeled threats to Syria’s integrity.
Russia, a close ally of Assad and a tentative partner of Erdogan, has supported the reconciliation push and, in 2022, hosted the first ministerial-level talks in Moscow since the war broke out. However, Erdogan noted that progress has stalled as Assad insists on a full withdrawal of Turkish forces from Syria as a condition for peace.
Erdogan also referenced Israel as a common enemy of both Turkey and Assad’s Syria. “The Israeli threat next door is no fairy tale,” he remarked, adding that “instability in the region spreads quickly.”
