DAMASCUS (Dispatches) –
Syrian sources on Saturday reported that Turkish army forces targeted areas near the Tell Abyad region on the northern outskirts of Raqqa with artillery.
Local sources said that Turkey-affiliated militias targeted two villages near Tell Abyad.
Turkish attacks caused material damage to Syrian citizens, according to the reports.
This is while news sources reported on Friday night that the Turkish army targeted the positions of the armed Kurdish group in northern Syria known as the SDF in the suburbs of Hasakah, Raqqa, and Aleppo.
The development comes as Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has reportedly rebuffed his Russian allies’ efforts to arrange a meeting with Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan, citing Turkey’s upcoming elections and the presence of Turkish troops on Syrian soil.
Assad believes such a meeting would help Erdogan in Turkey’s June elections, allowing him to signal progress on returning some of the 3.6 million Syrian refugees living in Turkey to its neighbor, according to Reuters.
“Why hand Erdogan a victory for free? No rapprochement will happen before the elections,” an unnamed source with knowledge of Syria’s thinking told Reuters.
Turkey hosts the world’s largest refugee population, and public resentment against Syrians has been growing in the country, which is facing a severe economic crisis. Amid the public frustration, Erdogan has promised a “voluntary return” of one million refugees to Syrian territory controlled by Ankara and its allies.
But an unnamed diplomat quoted by Reuters said Syria sees a meeting with Erdogan as “useless if it does not come with anything concrete, and what they have asked for so far is the full withdrawal of Turkish troops [from Syria]”.
Turkey launched its first invasion of Syria in 2016, with the aim of depriving Kurdish militants of a base along its border. Two more military forays followed in 2018 and 2019.
Ankara’s footprint in the territory has grown since those incursions.
But rapprochement with Damascus could help Turkey address concerns about Kurdish militants. Turkish officials have suggested in recent days that a new ground offensive into Syria could be imminent.
Last month Erdogan said he was open to resetting relations with Syria.
“There can be no resentment in politics,” he said in a television interview over the weekend.
Turkey and Syria’s intelligence chiefs have held multiple meetings in Damascus this year with the aim of arranging a potential meeting between the two countries’ foreign ministers, but one of the sources quoted by Reuters said Damascus had turned down the meeting.
Assad met Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed (MBZ) in March on his first visit to an Arab state since the foreign-backed war in Syria erupted in 2011.
A source with knowledge of Turkey’s thinking told Reuters an Assad-Erdogan meeting could still be possible “in the not too distant future”.
“Putin is slowly preparing the path for this,” the source said. “It would be the beginning of a major change in Syria and would have very positive effects on Turkey. Russia would benefit too... given it is stretched in many areas.”