Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said in an interview published on Thursday that Türkiye was concerned about Israel’s attacks in southern Syria and warned against the danger of Tel Aviv seeing Arabs and Muslims as threats.
Syria’s northern neighbor and a fierce critic of Israel’s genocidal policies against Palestinians, Türkiye has recently drawn the wrath of the Netanyahu administration. As Israel moves into Syria in the wake of the fall of the Baathist regime, Ankara's concerns regarding Tel Aviv grow.
Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan told the Financial Times in an interview published on Thursday that the ongoing attacks on the land and new troop movements are a clear “provocation.”
“Israel sees every Arab and Muslim country as a threat, and it is extremely dangerous. The strategy of keeping all its border states weak is untenable,” he stressed.
Syrian interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa has said that Israeli assaults on Syria reflected the country's "expansionist intentions."
"The Israeli aggression is an exploitation of the regime’s collapse. (Israel) justifies its aggression for alleged security concerns, but it reflects expansionist intentions," he said on the sidelines of an emergency Arab summit in Egypt on Tuesday.
"How will we respond? This is something we should not disclose now," he added.
Israel has conducted hundreds of airstrikes in Syria since the country’s civil war began in 2011, primarily targeting government forces and Iranian-linked positions.
Following an anti-regime offensive that removed longtime dictator Bashar Assad from power, Israel continued striking Syrian military sites. Last Tuesday, the Israeli army said it carried out airstrikes on military sites in southern Syria that contained weapons, just days after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called for the area to be demilitarized. Also, after Assad’s fall, Israel expanded its occupation of the Syrian Golan Heights by seizing the demilitarized buffer zone, a move that violated the 1974 disengagement agreement with Syria.
Fidan also spoke about the threat of the PKK terrorist group to his country. He emphasized that the PKK's Syrian wing YPG is "the sworn enemy" of Türkiye, adding, "We cannot let them continue."
Türkiye wants to give the new Damascus administration a chance to address the terrorist PKK/YPG issue, he said. If needed, he said, Türkiye could take over the camps and prisons in northeastern Syria currently under PKK/YPG control, where Daesh terrorists and their relatives are being held.
"It's a question of intelligence and air power," he said. "So if we, as neighbors of Syria, can come up with our own regional platform, we can still fight against Daesh even if the U.S. decides to pull out," he added.
In its 40-year terror campaign against Türkiye, the PKK, listed as a terrorist organization by Türkiye, the United States and the European Union, has been responsible for the deaths of over 40,000 people, including women, children, infants and the elderly. Since the fall of the Assad regime last December, Türkiye has repeatedly called on the PKK/YPG to dissolve or face a potential military operation. Syria's new rulers have also said there is no place for an independent armed force in the country.
Fidan also addressed U.S. President Donald Trump's recent actions, which have left many Western leaders shaken, suggesting that they serve as "a wake-up call for us to unite and design our own center of gravity." He added that Türkiye would want to be part of any new European security architecture if NATO were to unravel. Türkiye has been a member of the NATO alliance for over 70 years and boasts its second-largest army.
"The genie is out of the bottle and there is no way to put it back," Fidan said of European security.
"Even if President Trump decides not to withdraw from Europe at this time, it is possible that in the future, someone with similar views and political ideas might consider reducing America's contributions to European security."
