Turkey’s Erdogan lambasts Israel for undermining stability in Syria as Tel Aviv pounds its neighbour – Firstpost

Turkish President
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan slammed Israel for undermining stability in Syria as he called out the Jewish nation at a diplomatic forum. The wrath from the Turkish leader came days after the two countries held talks aimed at defusing an escalating conflict between them on Syrian soil.

“Turkey will not allow Syria to be dragged into a new vortex of instability,” Erdoğan told attendees at the Antalya diplomacy forum on the southern Turkish coast, accusing Israel of “trying to undermine the 8 December revolution”, about the insurgency that toppled the former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad after decades in power.

“We are in close dialogue and common understanding with all influential actors in the region, especially Trump and Putin, regarding the preservation of Syria’s territorial integrity and stability,” he added. Some of the prominent attendees at the diplomat forum included Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov and Syrian president
Ahmed al-Sharaa, who met Erdoğan on the sidelines of the conference in Antalya.

Brewing tensions between Israel and Turkey

During his address, Erdogan reiterated that Ankara is making efforts to lift global sanctions on Syria. While meeting Syria’s interim leader, Erdogan told Sharaa that Turkey “welcomes the fact that those who want chaos in Syria to occur again are not given an opportunity”. However, it is pertinent to note that tensions between Turkey and Israel have grown significantly since the fall of Assad’s regime.

Earlier this month, Israeli forces pounded three military bases across Syria with airstrikes. Meanwhile, Reuters reported that Turkish military teams had scoped out the main airport in Hama province as well as the T4 and Palmyra air bases in Homs, assessing the runways, hangars and infrastructure to see if forces and military hardware could be deployed. Ankara is getting involved in the Syrian territories as part of a planned joint defence pact between Turkey and Syria.

Amidst all this, the defence minister Israel Katz called airstrikes “a clear message and warning for the future”. According to The Guardian, Israel has stuck military sites in Syria hundreds of times since Assad fled to Moscow four months ago. During these strikes, Tel Aviv destroyed assets including missile systems and air defences that the transitional government in Damascus had hoped to inherit.

Meanwhile, Turkish officials have established fast ties with Damascus, while negotiating a reported defence pact that could see Turkish forces using Syrian airspace and establishing bases on the ground. Israel, on the other hand, is moving to expand its decades-old occupation of the
Golan Heights into a designated buffer zone following Assad’s departure.

“Assad had Russia as his protector in the second half of the Syrian civil war. If Turkey comes in and begins installing air defence systems or introducing jets into Syrian airspace, that limits Israel’s freedom of action significantly,” Aron Lund, an analyst with the New York thinktank Century International told The Guardian.

“For Turkey, the problem now is not just Israel objecting to their military presence but doing things that by design or default are weakening or preventing the emergence of a functioning government in Syria, such as saying the new Sharaa government can’t have forces south of Damascus,” he furthered.

With inputs from agencies.