Syrian President Bashar al-Assad stated in an interview on Monday that he would only accept a meeting with Turkish President Erdoğan if the ‘reference point for the meeting’ should be Turkey’s support for terrorism and the withdrawal of Turkish armed forces from Syrian territory.
Erdoğan recently signalled a willingness to begin negotiations with Damascus, in a significant policy change. Erdoğan announced at the NATO summit that, “I made my call to Mr Assad two weeks ago, ‘Either come to my country or let’s have a meeting in a third country’. We want to end this resentment.”
Assad clarified that a meeting would only take place if the question ‘why the relations were derailed 13 years ago’ would be addressed.
He was referring to the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011, when Turkey severed ties with Syria and supported multiple groups looking to oust Assad. These groups are now organised in the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army (SNA), called ‘terrorists’ by Assad.
Today, the SNA is located in a 30–40 km ‘buffer zone’ designated by Turkey in northern Syria along the Turkish-Syrian border. The stationing of Turkish troops has led to the mass displacement of Kurds and Arabs from the region and a de facto occupation of the territory.
In a recent interview, Salih Muslim, co-chair of the Democratic Union Party (PYD), pointed out that Turkey has been training terrorist groups in refugee camps near the Turkish-Syrian borders and sending them back to Syria, an on-going situation.
Syrian President Assad made it clear that the goal of the meeting should be the “cancellation or elimination of the causes of terrorism and the withdrawal of Turkish forces from Syrian territory.”
