Several years ago, if one were to open most Turkish media websites, there was a likelihood that sources in Ankara would be talking up a new war somewhere. Turkey was fighting the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which it views as a terrorist organization, and it seemed to be finding terrorists everywhere. Since 2016, Turkey has been fighting in Syria, and it has had bases in northern Iraq’s Kurdistan Region since the 1990s. It was also on a collision course with Greece and involved itself in Libya and other countries.
Today, Ankara appears to have changed course. It backs the new Syrian government and has appeared to support the integration of the Syrian Democratic Forces into the new Syrian security forces. It wasn’t long ago, in 2019, that Turkey invaded Syria to fight the SDF. Ankara was also carrying out drone strikes on the SDF, even though the US was backing the group. The US and Turkey are NATO allies, but Ankara was nonplussed by the US role in Syria at the time. Turkey accused the SDF of being linked to the YPG, which it viewed as the Syrian branch of the PKK.
In Syria, Turkey is backing reconstruction and seeking to help Damascus modernize its forces. This has not been greeted with pleasure in Jerusalem. Israel tends to view Turkey as an emerging threat and sees its role in Syria as problematic. Ankara would like to show that this is not the case. It wants a stable Syria today. This is a big change from a few years ago under the Assad regime, when Syria was divided and Iran was entrenching itself in the country. Turkey was not optimistic about Syria then. It had sent its forces into an area near the Euphrates in northern Syria in 2016 to stop the SDF advance near Manbij. It then invaded the Kurdish area of Afrin in 2018. It backed a Syrian proxy force called the SNA, but the SNA was largely made up of corrupt gangs. Ankara’s policy at the time was mostly a failure. It had weakened the Syrian rebellion and largely sidelined the rebels, using them to fight Kurds.
This all changed when Hayat Tahrir al-Sham rolled into Damascus in December 2024 and the Assad regime fled. Turkey then shifted away from backing weak gangs of proxies and moved to cement ties with the new government in Damascus. Instead of pushing an extremist line, Turkey has been pragmatic. It has also worked with Gulf countries and the US, which support Syria.
On other fronts, Turkey’s policy continues to lack clarity. Back in 2019, Ankara wanted to work with the Libyan government to carve out a huge swath of control in the Mediterranean, essentially pushing Turkey’s claims over the Greek islands and Cyprus. This was a major threat to stability in the Eastern Mediterranean. In those days, Ankara would often issue navigational warnings and claim it was conducting exercises, usually in a way that provoked Greece. Unsurprisingly, Israel, Greece, and Cyprus have grown increasingly close in recent years. Turkey can see what is happening and appears to have stepped back from trying to turn the Eastern Mediterranean into a Hobbesian universe of conflict. It’s not clear if this trend will continue, but if it does, many of the challenges facing countries in the Mediterranean could be reduced.
Turkey has also been working pragmatically toward a deal with the PKK. The PKK has signaled that it could disband and disarm, or at least rebrand itself. Turkey is willing to entertain this concept after four decades of war. This could help in northern Iraq, where Turkey’s war with the PKK has displaced Kurds. The trickle of bodies coming back to Turkey from that war has left Turkish families without their sons due to the endless conflict. Now, things may change. Peace could happen. Turkey’s decision to shift gears in Iraq is also part of a wider regional approach to patch things up with Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Ankara now wants closer ties with Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Pakistan, and other countries.
This has led to concerns in Jerusalem. A strong Turkey has often been critical of Israel. Where the countries were once friends, they are no longer. However, political changes in both countries over the next decade could change this trend. The question is whether pragmatic views in Israel and Turkey might be able to lead to a common understanding on various files, from Syria to the Eastern Mediterranean.