Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has said that he would not rule out a possible meeting with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to help restore bilateral relations between Turkey and Syria, Reuters reported on Friday.
Turkey cut ties with Syria in 2011 after the outbreak of the civil war, backing opposition groups seeking to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad. Since then Turkey has launched several military operations against groups it deems a threat to its security and established a “safe zone” in northern Syria, where Turkish troops are now stationed.
In 2022 Erdoğan said that removing Assad was no longer a priority for Turkey. Despite high-level talks between Ankara and Damascus brokered by Russia the same year, no significant progress was made.
However, as part of a broader effort to improve relations with Gulf countries, Turkey is now considering re-establishing ties with Damascus if there is progress on counterterrorism efforts, on the return of millions of Syrian refugees hosted in Turkey and on the political process.
In a speech to the press after Friday prayers, Erdoğan, who was asked about Assad’s reported comments that his government was open to normalization initiatives as long as they respected Syria’s sovereignty and contributed to counterterrorism, said Ankara and Damascus could act to restore ties.
“There is no reason for it not to happen,” the Turkish president said, adding that Turkey had no intention of interfering in Syria’s internal affairs.
“Just as we kept our ties very lively in the past – we even held talks between our families with Mr. Assad – it is certainly not possible [to say] this will not happen again in the future, it can happen,” Erdoğan continued.
In April 2023 the defense ministers and intelligence chiefs of Iran, Russia, Syria and Turkey held talks as part of efforts to rebuild Turkey-Syria ties after years of animosity.
The Al-Monitor news website cited Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani as saying earlier in June that his government is actively mediating reconciliation efforts between Turkey and Syria.
Syrian officials have repeatedly said that any moves towards normalizing ties between Damascus and Ankara can only come after Turkey agrees to pull out thousands of troops it has stationed in the rebel-held northwest.
