Syria will never allow its territory to be used as a staging ground for threats against Turkey, its top diplomat said Wednesday after talks in Ankara.
“The new administration will not allow Syrian territory to be used as a launchpad to threaten Turkey and the Turkish people. We will work on removing these threats,” said Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani.
He was referring to the presence of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in northeastern Syria, which the West sees as essential in the fight against jihadists but which Ankara regards as a security threat over its links to armed PKK separatists.
Since last month’s ouster of strongman Bashar al-Assad by Islamist-led rebels, Turkey has been threatening to launch a military operation against the SDF, prompting a flurry of US-led diplomatic efforts to head off a confrontation.
“We thank Turkey for trusting the new administration to address the source of these threats,” Shaibani said after talks with his Turkish counterpart Hakan Fidan.
“We are now working to solve these issues through negotiation and dialogue, and expect to see reach tangible results in the very near future,” he added.
The SDF, which controls an autonomous Kurdish region in the northeast, has said it does not want to break away from the rest of Syria, with Shaibani saying the area would have to come under Damascus’s control.
“There is no longer a justification for the presence of the SDF in their current form… in northeastern Syria,” he said.
“We must work to bring back the Arab tribes and return the region to the central government.”
The SDF spearheaded the military campaign that ousted Islamic State (IS) group jihadists from Syria in 2019 and still controls dozens of prisons and camps where thousands of militants are held.
But Turkey has offered Syria’s new leadership operational support in the fight against jihadist groups, and even offered to help run the prisons.
“We told them we are ready to provide operational support in the fight against IS, we’ve taken some steps in this regard in the last few days,” Fidan said, speaking of “intelligence sharing and developing military capabilities”.
Earlier, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey was the best option for fighting the jihadists.
“If the ISIS threat is truly feared in the region, Turkey is the greatest power with the will and strength to solve this issue,” he said.
Fidan also said Turkey was “ready to help with the management of ISIS camps and prisons”, echoing a similar offer made last week.
The Syrian delegation also included Defence Minister Murhaf Abu Qasra, who met with his Turkish counterpart Yasar Guler, and spy chief Anas Khattab, who held talks with Turkey’s intelligence boss Ibrahim Kalin.
