Turkey’s president wants to improve relations with Syria’s dictator – so he can take joint action against the Kurds and send Syrian refugees back.
Istanbul. Syrian head of state Bashar al-Assad may start the new year with optimism. After several Arab states established new contacts with his regime, neighboring Turkey now also wants to normalize relations with Syria. On the initiative of Russia, Assad’s protective power, Turkish and Syrian defense ministers met this week for the first time in eleven years. Turkish head of state Recep Tayyip Erdoğan now wants to sit down with Assad, whom he recently called a “terrorist”. Assad is demanding Turkish concessions, one of which is already becoming apparent: the threat of renewed Turkish military intervention in Syria appears to be out of the question for now.
Erdoğan worked for years to overthrow Assad and supported Syrian rebel groups. Turkish soldiers are stationed in Idlib province, the last rebel stronghold, to thwart a major assault by Assad’s army. The Turkish government has long viewed Assad as a war criminal responsible for the deaths of a million people in Syria’s war, Erdoğan said in 2017.