Syria's interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa resumes diplomatic efforts in post-Assad Syria and seeks to reinforce bonds with neighboring Türkiye. He will make his first visit to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and is also scheduled to visit Türkiye this week, the Syrian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Sunday.
Al-Sharaa, who previously visited Türkiye in February, will make the UAE his second Gulf destination after traveling to Saudi Arabia that same month on his first foreign trip since assuming the presidency in January.
He and other members of the new Syrian leadership have been working to strengthen ties with both Arab and Western leaders following the fall of the Bashar Assad regime in a lightning offensive in December, led by al-Sharaa's forces.
Al-Sharaa and his officials have also called for a complete lifting of sanctions on Syria. Syria is in desperate need of sanctions relief to kick-start an economy collapsed by nearly 14 years of war, during which the United States, the United Kingdom and Europe placed tough sanctions on people, businesses and whole sectors of Syria's economy in a bid to squeeze now-ousted Assad.
Calling for a peaceful transitional period and an inclusive government, Ankara has led diplomatic efforts since Assad's fall to help Syria regain its normalcy and ensure stability in neighboring countries where developments directly affect Türkiye. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has vowed to help the new Syrian administration form a state structure and a new constitution as the government looks to rebuild after 13 years of civil war.
One of Türkiye's primary concerns regarding Syria's security is the presence of the U.S.-backed YPG, the Syria wing of the terrorist group PKK, which has killed thousands of people in Türkiye since the 1980s. Al-Sharaa and Ferhat Abdi Şahin, the ringleader of the YPG, signed a deal in February in a move to alleviate the concerns of Türkiye. It marked a significant breakthrough that would bring most of Syria under the control of the government. The YPG carved out a so-called autonomous entity for itself in Syria's northeast amid instability due to the Syrian civil war. The deal to be implemented by the end of the year would bring all border crossings with Iraq and Türkiye in the northeast, as well as airports and oil fields, under the control of the central government.
The process of integrating former YPG terrorists into Syria’s army and security forces is also being closely followed by Ankara. Türkiye advocates that these forces should not focus on a specific area and should be scattered homogeneously. Furthermore, Türkiye had previously underlined that foreigners within the group must leave the country. The YPG currently controls one-third of Syria's territory, including most of the country's oil and gas fields. A Syrian official had announced last week that those fields would be taken under the control of the central government in the near future.
