Yaşar Yakış, a founding member of the Justice and Development Party and former Turkish Foreign Minister, urged Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to engage in direct talks with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
In a press interview with Turkish newspaper Zaman, Yakış stated that the world has left Turkey alone in Syria, calling on Turkish authorities to have direct discussions with President Assad. He previously mentioned that if Turkey had reconciled with Assad and the Kurds in the early stages of the Syrian war, it would not have suffered the losses it did due to the power struggles in Syria, and the potential establishment of a Kurdish state on the borders would not have emerged as prominently.
Yakış noted that the conflict among different groups in Syria has shifted from being merely a proxy war to a situation that risks drawing major powers into the conflict, emphasizing that Turkey should not have been a party while those actors executed their scenarios in the region.
In his earlier remarks, Yakış pointed out that Turkey is paying the price for past mistakes in Syria, asserting that Syria has become the most significant nation of concern to others since the outbreak of the crisis. He highlighted that Turkey, along with other countries, got involved in this situation unnecessarily and without any direct threat to it, affirming that if northern Syria poses a threat to Turkey, it is undoubtedly a result of Turkey's misguided policies.
Additionally, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's advisor, Bouthaina Shaaban, stated that a meeting between the two presidents is impossible under the current Turkish military presence in Syria. Syrian National Security Bureau Chief Ali Mamlouk confirmed during a trilateral Russian-Syrian-Turkish meeting that Syria is determined to liberate Idlib, urging the Turkish side, represented by Hakan Fidan, head of the intelligence agency, to fully respect the sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity of the Syrian Arab Republic and to withdraw completely from all Syrian territories.
