ISTANBUL: President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday said he might invite his Syrian counterpart Bashar Assad to Turkiye “at any moment,” in a sign of reconciliation after the 2011 war broke ties between Ankara and Damascus.
“We may send an invitation (to Assad) at any moment,” Erdogan told journalists aboard a plane from Berlin where he watched Euro 2024, the official Anadolu news agency and other media reported.
Turkiye originally aimed to topple Assad’s regime when the Syrian conflict erupted with the violent suppression of peaceful protesters in 2011.
But after backing various insurgent groups, Ankara has more recently shifted focus to preventing what Erdogan in 2019 dubbed a “terror corridor” from opening up in northern Syria.
Erdogan has long said he could reconsider ties with Assad.
Speaking to journalists, he said some leaders including Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested a meeting with Assad in Turkiye.
“Now we have come to such a point that as soon as Bashar Assad takes a step toward improving relations with Turkiye, we will show him the same approach,” Erdogan said.
Erdogan’s comments come after tensions have mounted over the past week against Syrian refugees in Turkiye, with a mob attacking properties and vehicles owned by Syrians in central Anatolian city of Kayseri.
Turkiye, which hosts some 3.2 million Syrian refugees according to UN data, has been shaken several times by bouts of xenophobic violence in recent years, often triggered by rumors spreading on social media and instant messaging applications.
The fate of Syrian refugees is also a burning issue in Turkish politics, with Erdogan’s opponents in last year’s election promising to send them back to Syria.
Erdogan says may invite Syria’s Assad to Turkiye ‘at any moment’
https://arab.news/5z7nm
Erdogan says may invite Syria’s Assad to Turkiye ‘at any moment’
- Erdogan has long said he could reconsider ties with Assad
- Tensions have mounted over the past week against Syrian refugees in Turkiye
Helicopter crashes in Libya during medical evacuation, killing 3
- The Matan Al-Sarra air base lies in an area under the control of Libya’s Benghazi-based eastern administration led by military strongman Khalifa Haftar, but authorities in the east did not comment on the crash
TRIPOLI: A helicopter has crashed in southeastern Libya, killing a medic and two crew members carrying out a medical evacuation, state media said Tuesday.
Libyan news agency LANA said the chopper went down overnight near an air base in the Kufra region about 60 kilometers north of the border between Libya and Chad.
The aircraft was attempting to evacuate a soldier who had been involved in a road accident in the desert, LANA said.
The cause of the crash was not immediately known and it was unclear what happened to the injured soldier.
Libyan media reports said two foreign nationals were among those on board who were killed, but this was not confirmed by authorities.
The Matan Al-Sarra air base lies in an area under the control of Libya’s Benghazi-based eastern administration led by military strongman Khalifa Haftar, but authorities in the east did not comment on the crash.
Libya remains split between the eastern administration and a UN-backed government in the west led by Prime Minister Abdelhamid Dbeibah. The LANA news agency is under the control of western authorities.
Libya has struggled to recover from chaos that erupted following a 2011 Arab Spring uprising that toppled and killed longtime ruler Muammar Qaddafi.
