Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan received a Syrian delegation led by interim Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani at his presidential palace in Ankara on Wednesday, the first such visit from the country since the outbreak of civil war in Syria in 2011, according to the Turkish presidency.
Erdoğan was accompanied by Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan during the meeting, which was closed to the press.
This is al-Shaibani’s first official visit to Ankara since an alliance of rebel groups led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) ousted Bashar al-Assad on December 8 following an 11-day offensive.
“We will represent the new Syria tomorrow in the first official visit to the Turkish republic, which has not abandoned the Syrian people for 14 years,” al-Shaibani said on Tuesday on X.
Turkey-backed armed groups fought Assad’s forces after civil war broke out, triggered by the brutal repression of anti-government protests.
It has maintained a working relationship with the HTS rebels, who now give it a direct line to Damascus.
The presence of Kurdish militant groups in Syria, which Turkey sees as terrorists but which have been allies of the United States in the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), was expected to dominate the talks between Erdoğan and al-Shaibani.
President Erdoğan and Foreign Minister Fidan increased their rhetoric last week, warning of a military operation in northern Syria unless the Kurdish militant groups there accepted Ankara’s conditions for a “bloodless” transition.
After the fall of the Assad regime, the head of Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization (MİT), İbrahim Kalın, became the first foreign official to visit Damascus, followed by Fidan, after which representatives from the US and Europe began to visit Damascus.