The new Syria‘s government has formally requested military support from Ankara to strengthen its defence capabilities and combat terrorist groups operating on its territory, especially ISIS, sources from the Ministry of Defence of Turkey confirmed on Wednesday.
The announcement was made in statements to the press by Turkish defence ministry sources at the Istanbul International Defence Industry Fair (IDEF 2025): “In line with this request, we continue to work to provide training, consultancy, and technical support to increase Syria’s defence capabilities. Türkiye’s primary goal is to support Syria’s political unity and territorial integrity and to lead efforts to achieve lasting peace in the region,” the source was quoted as saying by the Anatolia news agency.
Regarding the recent clashes between Druze and Bedouin in Syria’s Suwayda province, the Turkish Defence Ministry noted that escalating Israeli attacks have raised tensions between the Druze minority and the central government in Damascus, and insisted that Ankara is determined to preserve the unity and stability of Syria and to fight all terrorist groups in the region.
Integration of the SDF into the Syrian government
Asked by journalists about a possible integration of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which control vast swathes of territory east of the Euphrates River, into the Syrian government, the Turkish government stressed the importance of preserving Syria’s territorial integrity to ensure the security of Turkey and the entire region: “In this context, the implementation on the ground of the points agreed upon between the Syrian government and the SDF terrorist organization on March 10 will contribute to this stability”.
“The SDF terrorist organization must demonstrate in concrete terms that it is adhering to its agreement with the Damascus government,” the ministerial source said, adding that developments in this process are being followed in detail from Ankara. The Turkish government has repeatedly stressed over the years that the so-called SDF is led by the YPG, the Syrian affiliate of the PKK, which is designated as a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the EU and the United States.
ISIS – self-proclaimed as ‘Islamic State of Iraq and Syria’ or ‘Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant’ (ISIL) – is a radical Islamist organisation that in the early years of the Syrian civil war managed to take over vast swathes of Iraq and Syria, even proclaiming a so-called ‘caliphate’ in 2014. Although militarily defeated in 2019, the group remains active with ‘sleeper cells’ in rural and desert areas of Syria, where Syrian security forces dealt it a major blow last May by dismantling several such cells around Damascus; a week later, however, ISIS carried out a brutal suicide bombing in a church in the capital, killing 22 people.
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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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