Türkiye will stand against any attempt to undermine Syria’s security and territorial integrity, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday, as Kurdish leaders accused Damascus of retreating from agreements aimed at unifying the war-torn country.
Speaking at a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in the Chinese city of Tianjin, Erdogan said Ankara supported Syria’s recovery on the basis of dialogue, diplomacy and respect for sovereignty.
“We will continue to resist any attempt that threatens the security of our neighbor Syria,” he told the gathering, according to Turkish media.
Erdogan later discussed Israeli strikes, Syria’s reconstruction and political unity with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Türkiye’s presidency said.
His remarks coincided with fresh criticism of Damascus from Salih Muslim, a senior figure in the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), who said the government had pulled back from the March 10 deal that envisioned integrating Kurdish-led forces into state institutions.
He accused the transitional government of abandoning talks with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) that were due to continue in Paris.
Muslim, speaking on the sidelines of a pro-democracy conference in Iraq’s northern city of Sulaymaniyah, said minorities including Alawites and Druze backed the Kurdish vision for a decentralized Syria with local self-administration.
He said the government’s withdrawal was “a pretext under Turkish pressure” and warned that Damascus was moving ahead with “sham” parliamentary elections this month that excluded opposition-held and Kurdish-controlled areas.
He also denounced growing attacks east of Aleppo and Deir Ezzor on SDF positions by “pro-government militias” and remnants of ISIS, saying they aimed to undermine the March deal.
In a separate development, Türkiye’s state-run Anadolu news agency reported that Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) detained dozens of Arab tribal members loyal to Damascus in raids across Hasaka province at the weekend, accusing them of ISIS ties.
The raids, in neighborhoods including Ghuweiran and Aziziyah, targeted more than 50 people, including women, Anadolu said, citing local sources.
Families accused the YPG of looting homes and beating residents. Activists and academics from Hasaka condemned the arrests, urging in a statement the immediate release of the detainees and warning that continued “abuses by the terrorist organization” risked fueling new social tensions.
