Concerns Over Turkey Using Lebanese Economic Crisis for Political Expansion

Vehicles of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) are parked at the Turkish engineering construction company's base in August 2013 (AFP/MAHMOUD ZAYYAT)
Vehicles of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) are parked at the Turkish engineering construction company's base in August 2013 (AFP/MAHMOUD ZAYYAT)
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Concerns Over Turkey Using Lebanese Economic Crisis for Political Expansion

Vehicles of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) are parked at the Turkish engineering construction company's base in August 2013 (AFP/MAHMOUD ZAYYAT)
Vehicles of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) are parked at the Turkish engineering construction company's base in August 2013 (AFP/MAHMOUD ZAYYAT)

Concerns are mounting in Lebanon over Turkey’s political interference under the pretext of providing aid to alleviate the financial and living crisis.

Closed political circles are discussing the purpose behind Ankara’s food, medical and in-kind assistance to the most destitute families, and warning against attempts of a “political expansion towards Lebanon.”

Security services are monitoring these moves to ensure that they don’t intersect with Turkey’s security and political intervention in Syria, Iraq, Libya, and other countries in the African continent. Ankara’s interest in Lebanon was first manifested in Sidon with the establishment of an ophthalmology hospital with direct Turkish funding.

Analyzing the Turkish intervention, which is currently of a humanitarian nature, official Lebanese authorities do not hide their fears over Ankara’s attempt to benefit from the current situation to strengthen its presence, with the aim to expand politically in the medium or long terms.

The issue of foreign interference was raised in several meetings of the Higher Defense Council chaired by President Michel Aoun. While participants refused to enter into the details and to openly discuss the matter in the media, the minister of Interior, Brigadier General Mohamed Fahmi, hinted at such intervention in comments he made last week.

Senior political sources told Asharq Al-Awsat that talks about foreign intervention reflected the reality of the situation that would threaten to exacerbate Lebanon’s financial and political woes, which require a fast response by Arab brotherly countries “before it’s too late.”

The same sources revealed that Ankara assigned the Turkish Agency for Cooperation and Coordination (TIKA) the task of overseeing the distribution of aid through offices it had established in Tripoli, Akkar, Bekaa and Sidon, benefiting from the presence of Lebanese of Turkmen origin, and said that it maintained a direct relationship with the so-called representatives of the Turk tribes in North Lebanon.

The sources stressed that TIKA was not only active within the Sunni community, but has also begun to expand towards a number of other sects and within municipalities, universities and medical institutions.

They also noted that Turkey has a distinctive presence in the Bab al-Tabbaneh area in Tripoli, where Turkish flags and pictures of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan are raised.



Kurdish Fighters Leave Northern City in Syria as Part of Deal with Central Government

A first contingent of Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighters leave Aleppo, headed for SDF-controlled northeastern Syria, in Aleppo, Syria, 04 April 2025. (EPA)
A first contingent of Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighters leave Aleppo, headed for SDF-controlled northeastern Syria, in Aleppo, Syria, 04 April 2025. (EPA)
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Kurdish Fighters Leave Northern City in Syria as Part of Deal with Central Government

A first contingent of Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighters leave Aleppo, headed for SDF-controlled northeastern Syria, in Aleppo, Syria, 04 April 2025. (EPA)
A first contingent of Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighters leave Aleppo, headed for SDF-controlled northeastern Syria, in Aleppo, Syria, 04 April 2025. (EPA)

Scores of US-backed Kurdish fighters left two neighborhoods in Syria’s northern city of Aleppo Friday as part of a deal with the central government in Damascus, which is expanding its authority in the country.

The fighters left the predominantly Kurdish northern neighborhoods of Sheikh Maksoud and Achrafieh, which had been under the control of Kurdish fighters in Aleppo over the past decade.

The deal is a boost to an agreement reached last month between Syria’s interim government and the Kurdish-led authority that controls the country’s northeast. The deal could eventually lead to the merger of the main US-backed force in Syria into the Syrian army.

The withdrawal of fighters from the US-backed and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) came a day after dozens of prisoners from both sides were freed in Aleppo, Syria’s largest city.

Syria’s state news agency, SANA, reported that government forces were deployed along the road that SDF fighters will use to move between Aleppo and areas east of the Euphrates River, where the Kurdish-led force controls nearly a quarter of Syria.

Sheikh Maksoud and Achrafieh had been under SDF control since 2015 and remained so even when forces of ousted President Bashar al-Assad captured Aleppo in late 2016. The two neighborhoods remained under SDF control when forces loyal to current interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa captured the city in November, and days later captured the capital, Damascus, removing Assad from power.

After being marginalized for decades under the rule of the Assad family rule, the deal signed last month promises Syria’s Kurds “constitutional rights,” including using and teaching their language, which were banned for decades.

Hundreds of thousands of Kurds, who were displaced during Syria’s nearly 14-year civil war, will return to their homes. Thousands of Kurds living in Syria who have been deprived of nationality for decades under Assad will be given the right of citizenship, according to the agreement.

Kurds made up 10% of the country’s prewar population of 23 million. Kurdish leaders say they don’t want full autonomy with their own government and parliament. They want decentralization and room to run their day-to day-affairs.