The President of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, told journalists on Wednesday that he will soon be travelling to the Syrian capital, Damascus, although the exact date has yet to be confirmed. It will be his first visit to Syria in 15 years and the first since the revolutionary forces led by Ahmed al-Sharaa overthrew the Assad dictatorship in late 2024.
Asked about his anticipated trip to Damascus following a meeting with MPs from his AKP party’s parliamentary group at the Turkish parliament’s headquarters in Ankara, Erdoğan confirmed his plans to travel to the country in the near future: “I will visit Damascus. The date has not yet been set”, he said, as quoted by the Turkish news website T24. Erdoğan’s last visit to Syria was in January 2011, shortly before the start of the civil war, when the current Turkish president was serving as prime minister.
Last August, the Turkish ambassador to Damascus, Nuh Yılmaz, had already revealed in an interview with Al-Jazeera that Erdoğan planned to visit Syria before the end of the year and meet with Ahmed Sharaa at the Umayyad Mosque in the Syrian capital.
Turkey, the new Syrian government’s main ally
Turkey is currently the main ally in the region of the new Syrian government that emerged following the end of the Assad dictatorship and maintains close cooperation with Damascus in virtually all areas, from defence and the fight against terrorism to education, whilst the country seeks to erase the scars of a bloody civil war that left the country devastated and with an economy that will take decades to recover to its pre-war level.
The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Hakan Fidan, and the head of the National Intelligence Organisation (MİT) were the first senior Turkish officials to visit Syria following the success of the Syrian rebel offensive in early December 2024. Since then, Turkey and Syria have exchanged numerous official visits, and the Syrian President Al-Sharaa visited Turkey in early 2025.
Historic visit by Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney to Ankara
The announcement of the Turkish President’s forthcoming visit to Syria comes just one day before the scheduled meeting between Erdoğan and the Canadian Prime Minister, Mark Carney, who is due to arrive in Ankara tomorrow, Thursday. The official visit, scheduled for 21–24 October, is regarded as historic as it will be the first trip by a Canadian Prime Minister to Turkey.
During the meeting scheduled to take place at the Presidential Palace in Ankara, the two leaders are expected to discuss the current state of relations between Turkey and Canada and measures to strengthen cooperation between the two countries. Carney is also scheduled to hold a meeting in Istanbul with representatives of the Turkish business community.
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Edited and reviewed by:
Pablo Gómez is a specialist in Turkey and has been editor-in-chief of Hispanatolia since 2011. He has been analysing current affairs and geopolitics in Turkey and the surrounding region since 2006.
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