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Turkey PM: greatest goal is to improve relations with Syria and Iraq Turkey signals normalisation of relations with Syria
(about 3 hours later)
Turkey aims to develop good relations with Syria and Iraq, and both countries need to be stable for counter-terrorism efforts to succeed, the Turkish prime minister, Binali Yıldırım, has said. Turkey has signalled a normalisation of relations with Syria, in an apparent policy shift after five years of a civil war that has increasingly threatened Turkish borders and worn down an anti-government rebellion heavily backed by Ankara.
Turkey has long been one of the staunchest opponents of the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, arguing that only his departure can stabilise Syria. That has set it at odds with Assad’s ally Russia and distanced it from a US-led coalition more focused on fighting Islamic State. Such a move, which has been rumoured for weeks in media outlets in Lebanon close to the Bashar al-Assad regime, would represent a tectonic shift in the region’s dynamics, realigning protagonists in the war and potentially spelling an end to the rebellion against Assad’s rule.
Since taking office in May, Yıldırım has repeatedly said that Turkey needs to “increase its friends and decrease its enemies” – an apparent tacit admission that past policies have left Ankara sidelined. It would also indicate that Turkey sees the threat of Kurdish expansionism in northern Syria as a greater priority than the removal of Assad, who in 2011 spurned demands by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, then prime minister and now president, that he recognise rather than crush popular opposition to his rule.
“It is our greatest and irrevocable goal: developing good relations with Syria and Iraq, and all our neighbours that surround the Mediterranean and the Black Sea,” Yıldırım said, in comments broadcast live on television. On Wednesday the prime minister, Binali Yıldırım, said in a television address that restoring relations with Syria was needed both in the context of a counter-terrorism campaign and an overall reset of relations with regional powers.
“We normalised relations with Russia and Israel. I’m sure we will normalise relations with Syria as well. For the fight against terrorism to succeed stability needs to return to Syria and Iraq,” he said. Related: Israel and Turkey end six-year standoff
Isis, which controls parts of Syria and Iraq, has also established a network across the border in Turkey that has been blamed for a series of suicide bombings, some of which have targeted foreign tourists. “I am sure that we will return [our] ties with Syria to normal,” he said. “We need it. We normalised our relations with Israel and Russia. I’m sure we will go back to normal relations with Syria as well. We need this [because] in order for counterterrorism efforts to succeed there has to be stability in Syria and Iraq and [they] need to adopt a system of government that represents all our brothers and sisters [in Syria and Iraq]. This is inevitable.”
Turkey last month announced the restoration of diplomatic ties with Israel after a six-year rupture and expressed regret to Russia over the downing of a warplane, seeking to mend strained alliances. Officials have insisted those moves do not mark a broader foreign policy shift for Ankara. Turkish officials played down suggestions that Yıldırım’s remarks represented a policy reversal, insisting there was no intention of seeking reconciliation with Assad’s government, only with whichever government replaces him.
“There is currently no change in Turkey’s Syria policy. Turkey does not want to have problems with any countries in the region and emphasises the importance of ending terrorism as well as engaging in close cooperation for regional stability,” one official told Reuters after Yıldırım’s comments. “There is a distinction between Syria and Bashar al-Assad,” a senior Turkish official said. “We hope, at some point, relations between Turkey and Syria will get back to normal. That’s what it is. That’s all it is.”
“Of course Turkey wants to normalise ties with Syria, but there is no change in Turkey’s policy regarding Syria with Assad.” The remarks came weeks after Ankara restored diplomatic ties with Russia and Israel, ending months of escalating tensions with the Kremlin after Turkey shot down a Russian fighter jet that had strayed into its airspace, and years of severed relations with Israel after several Turkish citizens died when Tel Aviv ordered a raid on the Mavi Marmara, a flotilla attempting to break the siege of Gaza.
They reflect widespread fears inside Turkey that the war in Syria is threatening the country’s territorial integrity, a development that would have wider implications for Turkey’s restive Kurdish population.
The Kurdish PYD and its paramilitary force, the YPG, hold sway across vast tracts of northern Syria along the border with Turkey, which says they are Syrian affiliates of the Kurdistan Workers party (PKK), a designated terrorist organisation that is fighting a long-running insurgency in south-east Turkey.
Syria’s Kurds recently declared the territory they had clawed back from Islamic State control, with American backing, part of an autonomous zone that neither the Turkish nor the Syrian governments recognise, and which Ankara fears will spur its own insurgency.
Turkey has suffered terror attacks in its territory, including the recent bombing of its bustling Atatürk airport and an attack in Ankara last October that killed more than 100 people at a peace rally, both of which were blamed on Isis. Kurdish separatists have claimed several attacks against Turkish security forces.
Turkey has long been a staunch opponent of Assad, and has repeatedly called for his departure as the only path towards a credible peace process that would end the civil war. In that time Turkey has taken in more than 2 million Syrian refugees. Erdoğan said this month that he may offer citizenship to some.