Assad says Turkiye rapprochement doesn’t depend on troop withdrawal

DAMASCUS: President Bashar al-Assad said on Sunday the withdrawal of Turkish forces from its territory was not a pre-requisite to a rapprochement between the estranged neighbours.

“It´s not correct what was announced by some Turkish officials recently, that Syria said if there is no withdrawal, it will not meet with the Turks,” Assad told parliament on Sunday.

“This talk is far from reality,” he added.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan supported early rebel efforts to topple Assad after civil war broke out in the country in 2011, but reversed course in recent years.

Since 2022, top Syrian and Turkish officials have met for Russia-mediated talks, with Moscow pushing for a detente. Turkish troops and Turkiye-backed rebel factions control swathes of northern Syria, and Ankara has launched successive cross-border offensives since 2016, mainly to clear the area of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

Turkiye sees the Kurdish People´s Protection Units (YPG), which dominate the SDF, as an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers´ Party (PKK), which it considers a “terrorist” group.

In July, Erdogan said he might invite Assad to Turkiye “at any moment”, in a sign of reconciliation.

Assad said later that month he was open to meeting Erdogan but it depended on the encounter´s “content”, noting Turkiye´s presence in Syria was a key sticking point.