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Türkiye, Israel Have Begun Talks to Avoid Clashes in Syria

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan attends an interview with Reuters, in Brussels, Belgium April 4, 2025. REUTERS/Yves Herman
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan attends an interview with Reuters, in Brussels, Belgium April 4, 2025. REUTERS/Yves Herman
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Türkiye, Israel Have Begun Talks to Avoid Clashes in Syria

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan attends an interview with Reuters, in Brussels, Belgium April 4, 2025. REUTERS/Yves Herman
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan attends an interview with Reuters, in Brussels, Belgium April 4, 2025. REUTERS/Yves Herman

Turkish and Israeli officials began talks on Wednesday aimed at preventing unwanted incidents in Syria, where militaries of the two regional powers are active, Turkish ministry sources said on Thursday. 

The sources said the technical talks, in Azerbaijan, marked the beginning of efforts to set up a channel to avoid potential clashes or misunderstandings over military operations in the region. 

"Efforts will continue to establish this mechanism," one of the sources said, without providing further details on the scope or timeline of the talks. 

The initiative comes a week after Israel stepped up airstrikes on Syria, which it described as a warning to the newly formed government in Damascus. It has also accused Türkiye of attempting to turn Syria into a Turkish protectorate. 

Reuters reported last week that Turkish military teams had inspected at least three air bases in Syria where they could deploy forces as part of a planned joint defense pact with Damascus - before Israel hit the sites with airstrikes. 

Türkiye and Israel - which have traded diplomatic barbs since Israel's attacks began on Gaza in 2023 - each said last week they did not seek confrontation in Syria, which both border. 

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan confirmed on Wednesday that technical talks were taking place, emphasizing that such mechanisms were necessary to prevent misunderstandings between the two regional powers' forces. 

The talks were similar to deconfliction mechanisms Türkiye has with the US and Russia, he said on broadcaster CNN Turk. 

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Arab World

Settler Attacks Push Palestinians to Abandon West Bank Village

Men load a truck with their belongings in Maghayer al-Deir, east of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank © JOHN WESSELS / AFP
Men load a truck with their belongings in Maghayer al-Deir, east of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank © JOHN WESSELS / AFP
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Settler Attacks Push Palestinians to Abandon West Bank Village

Men load a truck with their belongings in Maghayer al-Deir, east of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank © JOHN WESSELS / AFP
Men load a truck with their belongings in Maghayer al-Deir, east of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank © JOHN WESSELS / AFP

Palestinian residents of Maghayer al-Deir in the occupied West Bank told AFP on Thursday that they had begun packing their belonging and preparing to leave the village following repeated attacks by Israeli settlers.

Yusef Malihat, a resident of the tiny village east of Ramallah, told AFP his community had decided to leave because its members felt powerless in the face of the settler violence.

"No one provides us with protection at all," he said, a keffiyeh scarf protecting his head from the sun as he loaded a pickup truck with chain-link fencing previously used to pen up sheep and goats.

"They demolished the houses and threatened us with expulsion and killing," he said, as a group of settlers looked on from a new outpost a few hundred meters away.

The West Bank is home to about three million Palestinians, but also some 500,000 Israelis living in settlements that are considered illegal under international law.

Settlement outposts, built informally and sometimes overnight, are considered illegal under Israeli law too, although enforcement is relatively rare.

The Israeli military told AFP it was "looking into" the legality of the outpost at Maghayer al-Deir.

"It's very sad, what's happening now... even for an outpost," said Itamar Greenberg, an Israeli peace activist present at Maghayer al-Deir on Thursday.

"It's a new outpost 60 meters from the last house of the community, and on Sunday one settler told me that in one month, the Bedouins will not be here, but it (happened much) more quickly," he told AFP.

The Palestinian Authority's Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission denounced Maghayer al-Deir's displacement, describing it as being the result of the "terrorism of the settler militias".

It said in a statement that a similar fate had befallen 29 other Bedouin communities, whose small size and isolation in rural areas make them more vulnerable.

In the area east of Ramallah, where hills slope down towards the Jordan Valley, Maghayer al-Deir was one of the last remaining communities after the residents of several others were recently displaced.

Its 124 residents will now be dispersed to other nearby areas.

Malihat told AFP some would go to the Christian village of Taybeh just over 10 kilometers (six miles) away, and others to Ramallah.

Uncertain they would be able to return, the families loaded all they could fit in their trucks, including furniture, irrigation pipes and bales of hay.