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Erdogan to Restore Relations with Syria to ‘How They Were in the Past’

A handout picture released by the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) shows Syrian President Bashar Assad receiving Russia's Special Envoy for Syria Alexander Lavrentiev in the capital Damascus (SANA/AFP)
A handout picture released by the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) shows Syrian President Bashar Assad receiving Russia's Special Envoy for Syria Alexander Lavrentiev in the capital Damascus (SANA/AFP)
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Erdogan to Restore Relations with Syria to ‘How They Were in the Past’

A handout picture released by the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) shows Syrian President Bashar Assad receiving Russia's Special Envoy for Syria Alexander Lavrentiev in the capital Damascus (SANA/AFP)
A handout picture released by the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) shows Syrian President Bashar Assad receiving Russia's Special Envoy for Syria Alexander Lavrentiev in the capital Damascus (SANA/AFP)

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Sunday he will extend an invitation to Syrian President Bashar Assad “any time,” renewing his readiness to restore relations with Damascus to the same level as in the past.

“We will extend our invitation (to Assad); with this invitation, we want to restore Türkiye-Syria relations to how they were in the past. Our invitation may be extended at any time,” Erdogan said.

“We have now arrived at a point where if Bashar Assad takes a step towards improving relations with Türkiye, we will also show that approach towards him,” Erdogan said. “Yesterday, we were not enemies with Syria. We met with Assad as a family.”

The President also noted his preference for “a face-to-face meeting with Assad” in Ankara, in line with Russian President Vladimir Putin's requests. He told journalists on a flight from Berlin, where he watched Türkiye play the Netherlands in the quarter-final of the European Championship's soccer tournament, “Our invitation may be extended at any time.”

Erdogan added that “Putin and the Iraqi prime minister have an approach for talks to be in Türkiye. We are talking about mediation everywhere, why not with our neighbor?”

Last month, the Turkish President did not rule out a possible meeting with Assad to revive relations.

His comments on Sunday came in response to Assad's statements during his meeting with the Russian President’s special envoy, Alexander Lavrentiev. Assad affirmed that Syria is open to all initiatives regarding Syrian-Turkish relations as long as they are based on respect for the sovereignty of the Syrian state over all its territory and the fight against all forms of terrorism and its organizations.

Russia-brokered normalization talks between Ankara and Damascus, which started in 2021 at different levels, have been stalled since June 2023 due to the Syrian government's insistence that Türkiye agrees to pull out thousands of troops from the opposition-held northwest of Syria.

The recent Turkish rapprochement towards Assad is due to several factors, most notably Ankara’s fears of local elections in the Kurdish Autonomous Administration areas of northeastern Syria next August. Türkiye considers the elections as a step towards establishing a Kurdish state on its borders. It seeks Moscow and Damascus’ support to prevent holding the elections.

According to observers, Ankara also seeks to normalize relations with Damascus to repatriate millions of Syrian refugees amid a steep economic downturn. Ankara wants to forge an agreement with the government of Damascus to reopen cross-border trade routes to Syria and other countries of the region.

At the same time, observers believe that the Assad government cannot meet the two requirements. Damascus is unable to secure the border or to accommodate more than 3 million refugees returning from Türkiye due to the deteriorating economic situation and the collapse of infrastructure. Also, the Syrian government is still incapable to secure trade routes, even if Türkiye is willing to withdraw its forces from the north of the country.

Protests in North Syria

Commenting on the recent spate of attacks on Syrian refugees in Kayseri, central Türkiye, and attacks on Turkish garrisons and interests in the Ankara-controlled area of Syria, Erdogan has vowed to reveal which hands triggered the clashes in north Syria.

Turkish security sources said on Sunday they detained a person named Ali Mohammed Hajj-Hassan Hamadah, accused of allegedly desecrating the Turkish flag during a protest in the northern Syrian city of Azaz. Sources said the man later expressed regret for his actions and apologized to the Turkish people.

On Saturday, the Turkish intelligence detained several people accused of allegedly desecrating the Turkish flag and taking part in last week’s anti-Turkish protests in the north of Syria.

The country’s National Intelligence Organization (MIT) said it detained a 17-year-old teenager, who allegedly tore down the Turkish flag in the northwestern al-Bab town.

The teen was recorded in front of a Turkish flag expressing his regret for his actions and kissing the flag.

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Arab World

UN Says over 400,000 Children in Lebanon Have Been Displaced in 3 Weeks by War

UNICEF Deputy Executive Director Ted Chaiban (R) visits a shelter for displaced people in Sidon, Lebanon, 12 October 2024. (EPA)
UNICEF Deputy Executive Director Ted Chaiban (R) visits a shelter for displaced people in Sidon, Lebanon, 12 October 2024. (EPA)
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UN Says over 400,000 Children in Lebanon Have Been Displaced in 3 Weeks by War

UNICEF Deputy Executive Director Ted Chaiban (R) visits a shelter for displaced people in Sidon, Lebanon, 12 October 2024. (EPA)
UNICEF Deputy Executive Director Ted Chaiban (R) visits a shelter for displaced people in Sidon, Lebanon, 12 October 2024. (EPA)

More than 400,000 children in Lebanon have been displaced in the past three weeks, a top official with the UN children’s agency said Monday, warning of a “lost generation” in the small country grappling with multiple crises and now in the middle of war.

Israel has escalated its campaign against the Lebanon-based Hezbollah armed group, including launching a ground invasion, after a year of exchanges of fire during its war with Hamas in Gaza.

The fighting in Lebanon has driven 1.2 million people from their homes, most of them fleeing to Beirut and elsewhere in the north over the past three weeks since the escalation.

Ted Chaiban, UNICEF's deputy executive director for humanitarian actions, has visited schools that have been turned into shelters to host displaced families.

“What struck me is that this war is three weeks old and so many children have been affected,” Chaiban told The Associated Press in Beirut.

“Their public schools have either been rendered inaccessible, have been damaged by the war or are being used as shelters. The last thing this country needs, in addition to everything else it has gone through, is the risk of a lost generation.”

While some Lebanese private schools are still operating, the public school system has been badly affected by the war, along with the country's most vulnerable people such as Palestinian and Syrian refugees.

″What I’m worried about is that we have hundreds of thousands of Lebanese, Syrian, Palestinian children that are at risk of losing their learning," Chaiban said.

More than 2,300 people in Lebanon have been killed in Israeli strikes, nearly 75% of them over the last month, according to the Health Ministry. In the last three weeks, more than 100 children were killed and over 800 were wounded, Chaiban said.

He said displaced children are crammed into overcrowded shelters where three or four families can live in a classroom separated by a plastic sheet, and where 1,000 people can share 12 toilets. Not all of them work.

Many displaced families have set up tents along roads or on public beaches.

Most displaced children have experienced so much violence, including the sounds of shelling or gunshots, that they cower at any loud noise, Chaiban said.

Then there is “evacuation orders upon evacuation orders. We’re at the beginning, and already there’s been a profound impact,” he said.

The escalation has also put over 100 primary health care facilities out of service, while 12 hospitals are either no longer working or partially functional.

Water infrastructure has also come under attack. In the last three weeks, 26 water stations providing water to almost 350,000 people have been damaged, Chaiban said. UNICEF is working with local authorities to repair them.

He called for civilian infrastructure to be protected. And he appealed for a ceasefire in Lebanon and in Gaza, saying there needs to be political will and a realization that the conflict cannot be resolved through military means.

“What we must do is make sure that this stops, that this madness stops, that there’s a ceasefire before we get to the kind of destruction and pain and suffering and death that we’ve seen in Gaza,” Chaiban said.

With so many needs, he said, the emergency response appeal for $108 million in Lebanon has only been 8% funded three weeks into the escalation.