The ongoing war in Gaza, the resulting changing geopolitical picture as well as terrorism may have led Türkiye and Syria to consider normalization once again, experts said.
The geopolitical situation in the region has changed with the war in Gaza and fears of a wider regional conflict. Özgür Ünlühisarcıklı, an analyst on Türkiye and director of the German Marshall Fund in Ankara, said that both countries may be feeling insecure and seeking new alliances in the face of the war’s potential regional ripple effects.
From President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s side, Ünlühisarcıklı said, the attempt to engage is likely driven in part by the increasing anti-refugee sentiment in Türkiye. Erdogan is likely hoping for a deal that could pave the way for the return of many of the 3.6 million Syrian refugees living in his country.
Erdoğan and Syrian leader Bashar Assad have recently signaled that they are interested in restoring diplomatic ties that have been ruptured for more than a decade.
Erdoğan has said that he will soon extend an invitation to Assad to meet for the first time since Ankara and Damascus broke off relations in 2011, as mass anti-government protests and a brutal crackdown by security forces in Syria spiraled into a still-ongoing civil war.
Türkiye backed Syrian insurgent groups seeking to overthrow Assad and still maintains forces in the opposition-held northwest, a sore point for Damascus.
This is not the first time that there have been attempts to normalize relations between the two countries, but previous attempts failed to gain traction.
Russia, which is one of the strongest backers of Assad’s regime but also has close ties with Türkiye, has been pushing for a return to diplomatic relations.
In December 2022, the Turkish, Syrian and Russian defense ministers met in Moscow, the first ministerial-level meeting between Türkiye and Syria since 2011. Russia also brokered meetings between Syrian and Turkish officials last year.
However, the talks fizzled, and Syrian officials publicly continued to blast Türkiye’s presence in northwest Syria.
Russia appears to once again be promoting the talks, but this time around, Iraq – which shares a border with both Türkiye and Syria – has also offered to mediate, as it previously did between regional archrivals.
Aron Lund, a fellow with the Century International think tank, said Iraq may have taken the initiative as a way to deflect pressure from Türkiye to crack down on the PKK terrorist group.
By pushing rapprochement with Syria, Baghdad may be trying to “create some form of positive engagement with the Turks, kick the can down the road, and deflect the threat of an intervention,” Lund said.
From the Syrian side, a return to relations with Türkiye would be another step toward in the region after more than a decade as a pariah due to his regime’s brutal crackdown on protesters in 2011 and alleged war crimes afterward.
And despite their differences over Türkiye’s presence in northwest Syria, Damascus and Ankara both have an interest in curtailing the autonomy of the PKK in northeast Syria.
Türkiye may be concerned that the security situation in northeast Syria could deteriorate in the event that the U.S. withdraws troops it currently has stationed there as part of a coalition against Daesh, Ünlühisarcıklı said. That could require Türkiye to “cooperate or at least coordinate with Syria, to manage the aftermath of the U.S. withdrawal,” he said.
Joseph Daher, a Swiss Syrian researcher and visiting professor at the European University Institute in Florence, said the two governments likely hope for modest “economic gains” in a rapprochement. While trade never completely stopped, it currently goes through intermediaries, he said, while restoring diplomatic relations would allow official commerce to resume and make trade more fluid.
Analysts agreed that the talks are unlikely to bring about the full Turkish withdrawal from northwest Syria that Damascus has called for or any other major shift in conditions on the ground in the near term.
Although the two countries’ interests “actually overlap to a large degree,” Lund said, “There are also major disagreements” and “a lot of bad blood and bitterness” that could impede even “lower-level dealmaking.” Both Erdoğan and Assad may also want to wait for the outcome of U.S. elections, which could determine the future American footprint in the region, before making a major deal, he said.
In the long run, Lund said: “The logic of the situation dictates Turkish-Syrian collaboration in some form. … They’re neighbors. They’re stuck with each other and the current stalemate does them no good.”
Ünlühisarcıklı agreed that a “grand bargain” is unlikely to come out of the present talks, but the increased dialogue could lead to “some confidence-building measures,” he said.
Daher said the most probable outcome of the talks is some “security agreements” between the two sides, but not a full Turkish withdrawal from Syria in the short term, particularly since the Syrian army is too weak to control northwest Syria by itself.
“On its own, it’s not able to take back the whole of the northwest – it needs to deal with Türkiye,” he said.
In Türkiye and in regime-controlled Syria, many view the prospects of a rapprochement positively. In northwest Syria, on the other hand, protests have broken out against the prospect of a normalization of relations between Ankara – which positioned itself as a protector of the Syrian opposition – and Damascus.
