BEIRUT: Syria’s President Bashar Assad slammed Turkiye in comments published Wednesday, blaming Ankara for the uptick in violence in his war-torn country and insisting on the withdrawal of Turkish forces from Syria.
Assad spoke in an interview with Sky News Arabia, his first interview with a foreign media outlet in months. The interview is to be fully aired later on Wednesday but Sky News Arabia released some excerpts ahead of the broadcast.
Turkiye is a main backer of armed opposition fighters who have been trying to remove Assad from power and has carried out three major incursions into northern Syria since 2016. Turkish forces control parts of northern Syria.
Assad has managed over the past few years to retake most of the territory with the help of his allies, and turn the tide of war in his favor. Syrian rebels and Turkiye-backed opposition forces now only hold a small northwestern corner of Syria, where fighting and violence have persisted.
“Terrorism in Syria is made in Turkiye,” Assad said.
He also denied rumors of an upcoming meeting between him and his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan despite meetings between Turkiye and Syria’s defense and foreign ministers under Russian and Iranian mediation to restore strained ties.
Damascus maintains that Ankara must put forward a timetable for the withdrawal of Turkish troops from Syria in order to normalize relations. In May, the ministers agreed to set up a “roadmap” to improve relations.
“Erdogan’s objective in meeting me is to legitimize the Turkish occupation in Syria,” Assad said in Wednesday’s interview. “Why should I and Erdogan meet? To have soft drinks?”
In recent months, Syria has also improved relations with some countries that had backed the opposition since the 2011 outbreak of the country’s civil war.
For the first time in over a decade, Assad participated in the Arab League summit hosted by Saudi Arabia in May, marking Syria’s return to the Arab fold. However, the United States, a key Saudi ally, has opposed normalizations with Damascus without a political solution to the conflict.
Assad said that a behind-the-scenes dialogue between Damascus and Washington that started several years ago and went on sporadically “did not lead to any results.” He claimed Damascus has been able “through different means” to overcome US sanctions.
One of the main topics discussed between US and Syrian officials over the past years was the fate of Americans who went missing in Syria, including journalist Austin Tice, who disappeared in 2012.
Two US officials — including Washington’s top hostage negotiator, Roger Carstens — made a secret visit to Damascus some years ago to seek information on Tice and other missing Americans. It was the highest-level US talks in years with Assad’s government, though Syrian officials offered no meaningful information on Tice.
Syria’s war has killed half a million people, wounded over a million, left large parts of the nation destroyed and displaced half the country’s pre-war population of 23 million. The fighting has mostly stalemated in the past years.
More than 5 million Syrians are refugees mostly in neighboring countries, Turkiye, Lebanon and Jordan.
“We knew since the start of the war that it is going to be long,” Assad said.
Syria’s Assad blames Turkiye’s Erdogan for violence in Syria, insists on pullout of Turkish troops
https://arab.news/98aek
Syria’s Assad blames Turkiye’s Erdogan for violence in Syria, insists on pullout of Turkish troops
- “Terrorism in Syria is made in Turkiye,” Assad said
- He also denied rumors of an upcoming meeting between him and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan
Israel confirms ban on 37 NGOs in Gaza
- UN has warned that this will exacerbate the humanitarian crisis in the war-ravaged Palestinian territory
- Several NGOS have said the requirements contravene international humanitarian law or endanger their independence
JERUSALEM: Israel on Thursday said 37 humanitarian agencies supplying aid in Gaza had not met a deadline to meet “security and transparency standards,” and would be banned from the territory, despite an international outcry.
The international NGOs, which had been ordered to disclose detailed information on their Palestinian staff, will now be required to cease operations by March 1.
The United Nations has warned that this will exacerbate the humanitarian crisis in the war-ravaged Palestinian territory.
“Organizations that have failed to meet required security and transparency standards will have their licenses suspended,” Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism said in a statement.
Several NGOS have said the requirements contravene international humanitarian law or endanger their independence.
Israel says the new regulation aims to prevent bodies it accuses of supporting terrorism from operating in the Palestinian territories.
Prominent humanitarian organizations hit by the ban include Doctors Without Borders (MSF), the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), World Vision International and Oxfam, according to a ministry list.
In MSF’s case, Israel accused it of having two employees who were members of Palestinian militant groups Islamic Jihad and Hamas.
MSF said this week the request to share a list of its staff “may be in violation of Israel’s obligations under international humanitarian law” and said it “would never knowingly employ people engaging in military activity.”
‘Critical requirement’
NRC spokesperson Shaina Low told AFP its local staff are “exhausted” and international staff “bring them an extra layer of help and security. Their presence is a protection.”
Submitting the names of local staff is “not negotiable,” she said. “We offered alternatives, they refused,” hse said, of the Israeli regulators.
The ministry said Thursday: “The primary failure identified was the refusal to provide complete and verifiable information regarding their employees, a critical requirement designed to prevent the infiltration of terrorist operatives into humanitarian structures.”
In March, Israel gave NGOs 10 months to comply with the new rules, which demand the “full disclosure of personnel, funding sources, and operational structures.”
The deadline expired on Wednesday.
The 37 NGOs “were formally notified that their licenses would be revoked as of January 1, 2026, and that they must complete the cessation of their activities by March 1, 2026,” the ministry said Thursday.
A ministry spokesperson told AFP that following the revocation of their licenses, aid groups could no longer bring assistance into Gaza from Thursday.
However, they could have their licenses reinstated if they submitted the required documents before March 1.
Minister of Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism Amichai Chikli said “the message is clear: humanitarian assistance is welcome — the exploitation of humanitarian frameworks for terrorism is not.”
‘Weaponization of bureaucracy’
On Thursday, 18 Israel-based left-wing NGOs denounced the decision to ban their international peers, saying “the new registration framework violates core humanitarian principles of independence and neutrality.”
“This weaponization of bureaucracy institutionalizes barriers to aid and forces vital organizations to suspend operations,” they said.
UN Palestinian refugee agency chief Philippe Lazzarini had said the move sets a “dangerous precedent.”
“Failing to push back against attempts to control the work of aid organizations will further undermine the basic humanitarian principles of neutrality, independence, impartiality and humanity underpinning aid work across the world,” he said on X.
On Tuesday, the foreign ministers of 10 countries, including France and Britain, urged Israel to “guarantee access” to aid in the Gaza Strip, where they said the humanitarian situation remains “catastrophic.”
A fragile ceasefire has been in place since October, following a deadly war waged by Israel in response to Hamas’s unprecedented October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
Nearly 80 percent of buildings in Gaza have been destroyed or damaged by the war, according to UN data.
About 1.5 million of Gaza’s more than two million residents have lost their homes, said Amjad Al-Shawa, director of the Palestinian NGO Network in Gaza.
