Turkey and Israel began the talks to prevent conflicts between their troops in Syria, like an Israeli military campaign and a growing rivalry for influence has raised tensions.
Turkish and Israeli governments declared in statements that a meeting took place on Wednesday in Azerbaijan. The meeting between military and security officials was aimed at elaborating a way “to prevent unwanted accidents in Syria”, said a declaration by the Turkish Ministry of Defense. The office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the two sides agreed to maintain a dialogue.
The meeting arrived just before a visit scheduled by the new Syrian leader, President Ahmed Al-Shara, Friday in Türkiye to discuss security and military cooperation, according to reports from Syrian television.
A rebellious coalition, led by Mr. Al-Shara and supported by Türkiye, President Bashar Al-Assad in December has reversed, forcing the main allies of Mr. Assad, Russia and Iran, largely to retire. In the resulting power void, Israel and Turkey competed for the flu. The rivalry is adding to the instability in Syria, where the new government is struggling, under pressure of the regional powers, to stabilize a country divided and wounded after 13 years of civil war.
Turkey has long occupied parts of northern Syria in support of the opposition that fights the Assad regime, as well as to fight the Kurdish rebels that calls a terrorist threat to their own strength. Turkey has recently offered to train a new Syrian army and to update the bases and airports of the Syrian army, affirm analysts, although Syria has not publicly confirmed its acceptance of the offer.
After the fall of Mr. Al-Assad, Israel moved the troops to a long-standing area of the heights of the Golan, and then beyond, occupying parts of southern Syria and carrying out hundreds of incursions of bombing against Syrian deposits and military bases.
The new government of Syria under Mr. Al-Shara protested the strikes and incursions of Israel as an attempt to destabilize the country and announced a foreign policy of non-aggression with all its neighbors. He said little publicly on the role that it provides that Turkey plays.
But the maneuver of the two rivals abruptly intensified last week while Israel bombed several bases, an attack that Syria said that he wounded dozens of soldiers and civilians. The foundations were among those that Turkey had offered to use and update, according to the reports of the media spread in Türkiye and Syria.
On Wednesday the Foreign Minister of Turkey, Hakan Fidan, accused Israel of expansionists in Syria, in comments on a Turkish television channel and said that Turkey had no intention of conflicting with Israel or any other country in Syria.
“We cannot see that Syria is once again exposed to domestic turbulence, to an operation, a provocation that would have threatened Turkey’s national security,” he said. “We can’t settle for watching.”
Turkey would have conducted military operations in Syria, including the use of aircraft, he said, and therefore there was a need to speak with Israel, as with other military forces in Syria, to prevent accidents.
The dispute between Israel and Türkiye was quite serious to present talks to the White House during the visit of Mr. Netanyahu to Washington Tuesday, with President Trump who offers to mediate between the two countries.
“We don’t want to see Syria used by anyone, including Turkey, as a basis for the attack on Israel,” said Netanyahu. He did not explain in what circumstance believed that Turkey could attack Israel, but the presence of Turkish jets and air defense systems in the bases in southern Syria would limit Israeli flights in the region.
“We discussed how we can avoid this conflict in various ways and I think we cannot have a better interlocutor than the President of the United States for this purpose,” added Netanyahu.
“I have an excellent relationship with Turkey and their leader and I think we will be able to solve it,” Trump replied.
But he added, looking directly at Mr. Netanyahu, “you must be reasonable”.
East Safak Reports contributed by Istanbul, Muhammad Haj Kadour by Damascus, e Rasgon man from Jerusalem.