DAMASCUS: President Bashar Assad said Sunday the withdrawal of Turkish forces from its territory was not a pre-requisite to a rapprochement between the estranged neighbors.
“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.
Syria’s war began after the repression of anti-government protests in 2011 and has killed more than 500,000 people and displaced millions.
Turkiye hosts some 3.2 million Syrian refugees out of a population of 85 million, according to United Nations data.
Their future regularly comes up in Turkish political debate, with some opponents of Erdogan promising to send them back to Syria.
Assad says Turkiye rapprochement doesn’t depend on troop withdrawal
https://arab.news/44y4b
Assad says Turkiye rapprochement doesn’t depend on troop withdrawal
- Syria’s war began after the repression of anti-government protests in 2011 and has killed more than 500,000 people and displaced millions
UN peacekeepers say Israeli forces fired on them in southern Lebanon
- “Yesterday, peacekeepers in vehicles patrolling the Blue Line were fired upon by IDF soldiers in a Merkava tank,” UNIFIL said
- It said that both the peacekeepers and the Israeli tank were in Lebanese territory
BEIRUT: The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon said Wednesday that Israeli forces fired on its peacekeepers a day earlier in the country’s south, urging Israel’s army to “cease aggressive behavior.”
It is the latest such incident reported by the peacekeepers in southern Lebanon, where UNIFIL acts as a buffer between Israel and Lebanon and has been working with Lebanon’s army to support a year-old truce between Israel and militant group Hezbollah.
“Yesterday, peacekeepers in vehicles patrolling the Blue Line were fired upon by IDF (Israeli army) soldiers in a Merkava tank,” a UNIFIL statement said, referring to the de facto border.
“One ten-round burst of machine-gun fire was fired above the convoy, and four further ten-round bursts were fired nearby,” the statement said.
It said that both the peacekeepers and the Israeli tank were in Lebanese territory at the time of the incident and that the Israeli military had been informed of the location and timing of the peacekeeping patrol in advance.
“Peacekeepers asked the IDF to stop firing through UNIFIL’s liaison channels... Fortunately, no one was injured,” it said.
Last month UNIFIL said Israeli soldiers shot at its troops in the south, while Israel’s military said it mistook blue helmets for “suspects” and fired warning shots.
In October, UNIFIL said one of its members was wounded by an Israeli grenade dropped near a UN position in the country’s south, the third incident of its kind in just over a month.
“Attacks on or near peacekeepers are serious violations of (UN) Security Council Resolution 1701,” UNIFIL said on Wednesday, referring to the 2006 resolution that formed the basis of the November 2024 truce.
“We call on the IDF to cease aggressive behavior and attacks on or near peacekeepers working to rebuild stability along the Blue Line,” the peacekeepers said.
Israel carries out regular attacks on Lebanon despite the truce, usually saying it is targeting sites and operatives belonging to Hezbollah, which it accuses of rearming.
It has also kept troops in five south Lebanon areas it deems strategic.
On Saturday, a UN Security Council delegation visiting Lebanon urged all parties to uphold the ceasefire.
It emphasized that the “safety of peacekeepers must be respected and that they must never be targeted,” after gunmen on mopeds attacked UNIFIL personnel last week.
