After Donald Trump won the US presidential election, the conference of Arab and Islamic countries held in Saudi Arabia’s capital Riyadh is being discussed a lot.
The conference is being seen as a strategy to put pressure on Trump to stop Israeli military action in Gaza and Lebanon.
But it is also in the news for another reason.
When Syrian President Bashar al-Assad stood up to speak in the joint meeting of the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation in this conference, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s representative was on his chair instead of him.
According to media reports, Erdogan and Assad were not standing together even when the group photo of the leaders participating in the conference was taken.
Erdogan has explained the presence of his representative on his chair in the joint meeting. According to the Arabic newspaper Asharq Al Awsat, he said that he did not leave the meeting.
At that time, he had a program to meet Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammad Salman. So he had to leave.
Turkish journalist Rip Soylu shared a video clip of the Turkish President’s representative sitting on the President’s chair during Bashar al-Assad’s speech and wrote, “When Syrian President Bashar al-Assad started speaking at the Islamic countries summit in Riyadh, Erdogan got up and left. It is seen in the video clip that a Turkish representative is sitting in his place. There seems to be no progress in the talks between Erdogan and Assad.”
Ripe has reposted its post and written, ”Erdogan says that he did not leave in protest against Assad, but he had to leave because he had to talk to the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia.”
What did Erdogan say about Turkey-Syria relations?
According to the news agency Associated Press, Erdogan told the news agency Anadolu, ”I still have hope from Assad. We can still come together. Turkey and Syria’s relations can come back on track.”
Erdogan said, ”We have extended our hand towards Syria to normalize relations. We believe that normalizing relations between the two countries will open the door to peace in Syria.”
Referring to the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party and the Syrian Kurdish groups associated with it, Erdogan said, ”We are not a threat to the integrity of Syria. Terrorists and especially terrorist organizations like PKK, PYD, and YPG are a threat to the integrity of Syria.”
Erdogan said that given the current tension in the Middle East, an agreement with Turkey would be in Syria’s interest.
Erdogan said, ”The threat of Israel in our neighborhood is not a fictional story. We should not forget that instability spreads more rapidly through tense areas.”
When Erdogan was asked what he would say about the recent Turkish attack on Syria.
To this, he said, ”Cooperation across the border has always been on our agenda.”
Why is the relationship between Turkey and Syria not being restored?
The relations between Turkey and Syria have been bad for a long time.
Recently both Erdogan and Assad have expressed their desire to work towards improving the relations between Turkey and Syria, but no concrete results have been seen so far.
However, after returning from Saudi Arabia, when Erdogan was asked about improving relations with Syria, he said that he had high hopes for an agreement with President Assad.
He hopes that the decades-long tension between the two neighboring countries can end.
Turkey’s relations with Syria broke down when it started supporting rebel groups fighting against Assad in the civil war there.
Assad had said at that time that Turkey was plotting to increase instability in his country.
After this, Turkey carried out several attacks in Syria and its army is still present in the north-western region occupied by rebels fighting against Assad. Syria has been criticizing this.
But in recent times, Turkey has been seen trying to restore peace with Syria.
Turkey is threatened by the Kurdish militia groups present in Syria.
It wants to agree with Syria to secure the southern border of the country from Kurdish militia groups.
Syria has been supporting the Kurdish movement in Turkey.
Apart from this, Turkey wants Syria to help it in the return of Syrian refugees who have come to its country.
Russia is a vocal advocate of agreement on both sides. Russia is supporting the Assad government in Syria but it also has good relations with Turkey.
Russia is trying to restore diplomatic relations between the two countries.
In December 2022, ministerial-level talks were held between Russia, Syria, and Turkey in Moscow.
This was the first ministerial-level talks between the two countries after 2011.
Russia also mediated in a meeting between Syrian and Turkish officials last year.
But after that, there has been no talk of normalizing relations between the two.
Syrian President Assad has publicly said that relations with Turkey can be normalized only when it withdraws its troops from the northern part of his country.
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In recent months, there have been other attempts to normalize relations between Turkey and Syria.
Iran is also involved in the efforts to normalize relations between the two countries, along with Russia.
However, these efforts have not yielded any results.
Like Erdogan, Assad has also expressed a positive attitude towards talks.
Last summer, he said that if Syria’s sovereignty and integrity are respected, then peace can be initiated with Turkey.
In July this year, the Syrian President said that Turkey should withdraw its troops from his country.
However, he did not present this as a condition for normalizing relations.
In November, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fida said in an interview with ‘Hurriyat newspaper, “Assad government is not yet ready to compromise with the opposition parties in Syria and to build better relations with Turkey. As far as we know, Assad and his allies are not ready for such agreements and normalizing the situation on the border.”
News agency AP has written that when Erdogan was not seen when Assad was speaking at the meeting between Arab Islamic countries in Riyadh two days ago, it is being said that the tension between Turkey and Syria is still there.
However, Erdogan denied that he did not go there because of Turkey’s tense relations with Syria.
How did the relations deteriorate?
The relations between Turkey and Syria started deteriorating in 1998 when Turkey accused the Syrian government of supporting the Kurdistan Workers Party.
Turkey has banned the Kurdistan Workers Party by declaring it a terrorist organization.
The tension between the two countries increased further in 2011 when millions of displaced Syrians started reaching Turkey after the civil war in Syria.
Erdogan was the Prime Minister of Türkiye at that time.
He had criticized Assad at that time, saying that he was spreading violence ‘against his people’. He even called Assad a ‘terrorist’.
Thousands of people have lost their lives in Syria’s civil war so far and Turkey has supported rebel groups opposing the Assad government.
Since 2018, the Turkish army has started infiltrating northern Syria to attack the Kurdish militia of the People’s Protection Unit, a branch of the PKK.
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