Al Shaibani continues his diplomatic mission by lobbying governments that have vowed to support a post-Assad Syria (Getty/File Photo)
Syria’s Interim Foreign Minister Assad al-Shaybani met with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his counterpart Hakan Fidan on Wednesday in his first official visit since assuming office after the fall of Assad’s regime.
According to Turkish media, President Erdoğan received Al-Shaibani at the presidential palace in Ankara.
He noted that the meeting took place behind closed doors in the presence of Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan.
The caretaker foreign minister was accompanied by Defense Minister Mulhaf Abu Kasra and Intelligence Director Anas Hassan Khattab.
Before his visit, Al-Shaibani issued the following statement to X magazine: “Tomorrow we will represent the new Syria in our first official visit to the Republic of Turkey, which has not abandoned the Syrian people for 14 years.”
Turkey has supported rebel groups fighting Bashar al-Assad during Syria’s civil war, which began with the regime’s brutal crackdown on peaceful protests in 2011. The Turkish government has also intervened militarily in conflicts since 2016, particularly against Kurdish groups.
Since the ouster of President al-Assad, the Turkish government has maintained a cooperative relationship with the rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), building a strategic relationship with the Syrian interim government and supporting post-Assad reconstruction. I promise to do that.
Mr. Al-Shaibani, who received his doctorate from Istanbul Sabahattin Zaim University, has traveled to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan, and the UAE as part of his Middle East tour since taking office on December 21.
Al-Shaybani will travel to Ankara with a high-level delegation to meet with Hakan Fidan, Defense Minister Yasar Güler, and Intelligence Director Ibrahim Kalin.
Clashes between pro-Assad remnants and the new Syrian government
Meanwhile, clashes broke out between pro-Assad forces and the Syrian Interim Authority on Tuesday after two members of the Syrian Military Security Service were killed and seven others were captured in the Latakia countryside.
The kidnapped members were later released by the Syrian authorities in charge, according to Lieutenant Colonel Mustafa Khunefati, according to the New Arab Arabic-language website Al Arabi Al Jadid.
Khunefati said a former officer of Suhail al-Hassan’s 25th Division, the so-called Bassam Nasser al-Din, who had threatened to kill the prisoners, was killed in an operation aimed at freeing the soldiers.
The incident comes as Syrian authorities are carrying out wide-ranging operations against remaining affiliates of the Assad regime in the provinces of Homs, Damascus and Latakia, seizing warehouses containing Assad-era weapons and other ammunition. It happened.
The Syrian Security Directorate seized a warehouse containing explosives in Homs, central Syria, on Tuesday. “The General Security Directorate was able to seize a warehouse containing explosives, including mines and rocket-propelled grenades, in the village of Umm Haratin, west of Homs,” state news agency SANA reported.
SDF and SFA continue fighting in northeastern Syria
Meanwhile, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) reportedly repelled an attack by the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army (SNA) near the strategic Tishrin Dam in the country’s northeast.
The SDF said at least 18 fighters from the Ankara Support Group were killed and nine others injured.
The area has been the site of heavy fighting sparked by SNA attempts to gain control of the dam and Qarazaq Bridge in Aleppo’s Manbij countryside.
According to the SDF, the SNA launched a major attack on the Siritael Hills area using fighter jets and unmanned combat aircraft (UCAVs), which was responded by Kurdish groups backed by the US. DShK weapons and one BMB armored vehicle were reportedly destroyed and another damaged.
In response, the SNA launched a retaliation against the Kurdish forces, killing five fighters.
At least 280 people have been killed in recent weeks in fighting in northeastern Syria, which is home to several important dams on the Euphrates River, and the Tishrin dam is one of Syria’s key sources of hydropower.
