Syria is entering a new phase of recovery and stability, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said Tuesday, welcoming steps to guarantee the rights of Kurdish citizens while urging terrorist groups to abandon separatist agendas and armed structures.
Speaking at a ceremony for the Overseas Contracting Services Success Awards in Ankara, Erdoğan said the Syrian people, exhausted by years of war and destruction, want peace and normalcy.
“Syria will rise again,” he said, adding that Türkiye’s support would help accelerate stability and reconstruction across the country.
Ankara has been a major supporter of Syria’s new administration, led by President Ahmad al-Sharaa, which has been working to rebuild and bring Syria back to the international arena since ousting Bashar Assad’s regime in December 2024.
Erdoğan said improved security in Syria would have positive spillover effects across the region, boosting trade, tourism and investment. He pointed to what he described as a coming reconstruction drive focused on rebuilding cities, infrastructure and social services.
“Resources that should be spent on prosperity will be used to build hospitals, schools and bakeries above ground, not tunnels underground,” he said, referring to the hideouts dug across northern Syria by the YPG terrorist group.
The YPG is the Syrian offshoot of the PKK terrorist group, which has waged a decadeslong campaign that killed over 40,000 people in Türkiye, Syria and Iraq. The YPG is allied with the U.S. under the pretext of fighting Daesh remnants in the region and controls oil-rich cities in the northeast.
Earlier in January, clashes that broke out between the YPG and government forces ended with a fragile cease-fire deal announced on Jan. 18, and government forces regained large areas occupied by the YPG. The deal stipulates the YPG’s integration into the Syrian army, the return of oil wells and camps holding Daesh detainees.
The YPG had previously failed to implement a March 10, 2025, agreement with the government that called for equal rights for the Kurdish component and the integration of civil and military institutions into the state, insisting on decentralized rule and its self-styled autonomy in the northeast. Damascus has since issued a special decree guaranteeing the cultural, linguistic and civil rights of Kurdish Syrians.
The Turkish president said Ankara was “pleased” that the rights of Kurdish citizens in Syria were being secured, stressing that Türkiye was closely coordinating humanitarian assistance with the Syrian government for Kurdish communities across the border.
“There cannot be a state within a state, separate armed forces or parallel structures,” Erdoğan said, reiterating his call on the PKK/YPG to abandon autonomy demands. “The shelf life of terrorism has expired.”
He underlined the importance of the recent cease-fire and integration arrangements in Syria, saying full implementation was essential for lasting peace.
Erdoğan criticized earlier failures to fully adhere to previous agreements but said a clear path now exists. “Reason and conscience point to the same direction,” he said, adding that Syria’s resources should belong to the Syrian people and be used to secure a peaceful future for the country and the wider region.
