عربي English Türkçe اردو فارسى
Logo
Latest News
Arab World

Türkiye Says ‘Final Step’ Required before Proposed Erdogan, Assad Meeting

Demonstrators raise Syrian opposition flags and placards as they rally against a potential rapprochement between Ankara and the Syrian regime, on December 30, 2022, in the opposition-held city of al-Bab, on the border with Türkiye, in Syria's northern Aleppo province. (AFP)
Demonstrators raise Syrian opposition flags and placards as they rally against a potential rapprochement between Ankara and the Syrian regime, on December 30, 2022, in the opposition-held city of al-Bab, on the border with Türkiye, in Syria's northern Aleppo province. (AFP)
TT
20
TT

Türkiye Says ‘Final Step’ Required before Proposed Erdogan, Assad Meeting

Demonstrators raise Syrian opposition flags and placards as they rally against a potential rapprochement between Ankara and the Syrian regime, on December 30, 2022, in the opposition-held city of al-Bab, on the border with Türkiye, in Syria's northern Aleppo province. (AFP)
Demonstrators raise Syrian opposition flags and placards as they rally against a potential rapprochement between Ankara and the Syrian regime, on December 30, 2022, in the opposition-held city of al-Bab, on the border with Türkiye, in Syria's northern Aleppo province. (AFP)

Syrian regime media reported that Türkiye has agreed to fully withdraw its military from northern Syria following tripartite talks it held with Damascus and Moscow. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said such a move requires progress in the political process there. 

“Our defense minister and intelligence chief presented our position and the necessary explanation during the meeting in Moscow,” Cavusoglu told reporters on Saturday.  

“We always say that if there is a vacuum, terrorist organizations should not fill this void,” he added, explaining that his country is aware of Syrian sovereignty over the territories where Turkish forces are stationed.  

The top diplomat moved on to affirm that Türkiye has no “ambitions” of taking over Syrian lands. 

“We support the territorial integrity of Syria, but there must be stability in northern Syria, and some steps must be taken in the political process,” he remarked.  

“We have been saying this for a long time,” he stressed.  

Last Wednesday, defense ministers of Russia, Türkiye and Syria held talks in Moscow.  

Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar met Syrian Defense Minister Ali Mahmoud Abbas in Moscow along with Russia’s Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu.  

The three countries’ heads of intelligence were also present at the meeting.  

The meeting dealt, according to the Turkish Ministry of Defense, with the issue of “the safe return of Syrian refugees, cooperation in combating terrorist organizations and the political process in Syria.” 

Discussions between Turkish and Syrian intelligence services had paved the way for the high-level meeting.  

Moreover, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said, in previous statements, that he offered Russian President Vladimir Putin a summit meeting, preceded by a meeting of the heads of the intelligence services and the ministers of defense and foreign affairs.  

Cavusoglu said that the next step after the defense ministers' meeting “will be to hold a meeting of foreign ministers, and that he will meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to discuss the matter.” 

Most Viewed

 
Arab World

Displaced Syrians Who Have Returned Home Face a Fragile Future, Says UN Refugees Chief

A handout picture released by the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) shows Syria's interim Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani (R) meeting with United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi in the Syrian capital Damascus on June 20, 2025. (SANA / AFP)
A handout picture released by the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) shows Syria's interim Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani (R) meeting with United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi in the Syrian capital Damascus on June 20, 2025. (SANA / AFP)
TT
20
TT

Displaced Syrians Who Have Returned Home Face a Fragile Future, Says UN Refugees Chief

A handout picture released by the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) shows Syria's interim Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani (R) meeting with United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi in the Syrian capital Damascus on June 20, 2025. (SANA / AFP)
A handout picture released by the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) shows Syria's interim Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani (R) meeting with United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi in the Syrian capital Damascus on June 20, 2025. (SANA / AFP)

UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said Friday that more than two million Syrian refugees and internally displaced people have returned home since the fall of the government of Bashar al-Assad in December.

Speaking during a visit to Damascus that coincided with World Refugee Day, Grandi described the situation in Syria as “fragile and hopeful” and warned that the returnees may not remain if Syria does not get more international assistance to rebuild its war-battered infrastructure.

“How can we make sure that the return of the Syrian displaced or refugees is sustainable, that people don’t move again because they don’t have a house or they don’t have a job or they don’t have electricity?” Grandi asked a small group of journalists after the visit, during which he met with Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani and spoke with returning refugees.

“What is needed for people to return, electricity but also schools, also health centers, also safety and security,” he said.

Syria’s near 14-year civil war, which ended last December with the ouster of Assad in a lightning opposition offensive, killed nearly half a million people and displaced half the country’s pre-war population of 23 million.

Grandi said that 600,000 Syrians have returned to the country since Assad’s fall, and about another 1.5 million internally displaced people returned to their homes in the same period.

However, there is little aid available for the returnees, with multiple crises in the region -- including the new Israel-Iran war -- and shrinking support from donors. The UNHCR has reduced programs for Syrian refugees in neighboring countries, including healthcare, education and cash support for hundreds of thousands in Lebanon.

“The United States suspended all foreign assistance, and we were very much impacted, like others, and also other donors in Europe are reducing foreign assistance,” Grandi said, adding: “I tell the Europeans in particular, be careful. Remember 2015, 2016 when they cut food assistance to the Syrian refugees in Lebanon and Jordan, the Syrians moved toward Europe.”

Some have also fled for security reasons since Assad's fall. While the situation has stabilized since then, particularly in Damascus, the new government has struggled to extend its control over all areas of the country and to bring a patchwork of former opposition groups together into a national army.

Grandi said the UNHCR has been in talks with the Lebanese government, which halted official registration of new refugees in 2015, to register the new refugees and “provide them with basic assistance.”

“This is a complex community, of course, for whom the chances of return are not so strong right now,” he said. He said he had urged the Syrian authorities to make sure that measures taken in response to the attacks on civilians “are very strong and to prevent further episodes of violence.”

The Israel-Iran war has thrown further fuel on the flames in a region already dealing with multiple crises. Grandi noted that Iran is hosting millions of refugees from Afghanistan who may now be displaced again.

The UN does not yet have a sense of how many people have fled the conflict between Iran and Israel, he said.

“We know that some Iranians have gone to neighboring countries, like Azerbaijan or Armenia, but we have very little information. No country has asked for help yet,” he said. “And we have very little sense of the internal displacement, because my colleagues who are in Iran - they’re working out of bunkers because of the bombs.”