Turkey’s Minister of National Defense says Turkey backs Syria’s military and has no immediate withdrawal plans 

Turkey was already responsible for putting al-Qaeda linked leader Abu Mohammed al-Jolani (a/k/a Ahmed al-Sharaa) in power, and will continue to work for Turkish hegemony over Syria and the region in the long term, even as the Western way is short-term, from election to election.

Turkey and Israel are cooperating for the time being, but Turkey is governed by Islamic supremacist strongman Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has expressed unity with the Taliban and intense hostility toward Israel. He is also deadly to the Kurds. Erdogan’s long-term plan envisions a revival of the Ottoman Empire, with himself as caliph.

A report in Turkish Minute accurately assesses the implications of Turkey’s presence at Israel’s back door:

Analysts warn that Turkey and Israel are on a dangerous trajectory in Syria, where their conflicting strategic visions and expanding military footprints have sharply escalated tensions since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in December 2024.

Turkey and Israel, two of the region’s most powerful military actors, are increasingly locked in a volatile standoff in Syria. While both countries insist they do not seek a direct war, their expanding roles in the post-Assad power vacuum have put them on what many analysts call a collision course.

“Turkiye backing Syria’s military and has no immediate withdrawal plans, defense minister says,” Arab News, June 4, 2025:

ANKARA: Turkiye is training and advising Syria’s armed forces and helping improve its defenses, and has no immediate plans for the withdrawal or relocation of its troops stationed there, Defense Minister Yasar Guler told Reuters.

Turkiye has emerged as a key foreign ally of Syria’s new government since rebels — some of them backed for years by Ankara — ousted former Syrian President Bashar Assad in December to end his family’s five-decade rule.

It has promised to help rebuild neighboring Syria and facilitate the return of millions of Syrian civil war refugees, and played a key role last month getting US and European sanctions on Syria lifted.

The newfound Turkish influence in Damascus has raised Israeli concerns and risked a standoff or worse in Syria between the regional powers.

In written answers to questions from Reuters, Guler said Turkiye and Israel — which carried out its latest airstrikes on southern Syria late on Tuesday — are continuing de-confliction talks to avoid military accidents in the country.

Turkiye’s overall priority in Syria is preserving its territorial integrity and unity, and ridding it of terrorism, he said, adding Ankara was supporting Damascus in these efforts.

“We have started providing military training and consultancy services, while taking steps to increase Syria’s defense capacity,” Guler said, without elaborating on those steps.

Named to the post by President Tayyip Erdogan two years ago, Guler said it was too early to discuss possible withdrawal or relocation of the more than 20,000 Turkish troops in Syria.
Ankara controlled swathes of northern Syria and established dozens of bases there after several cross-border operations in recent years against Kurdish militants it deems terrorists.

This can “only be re-evaluated when Syria achieves peace and stability, when the threat of terrorism in the region is fully removed, when our border security is fully ensured, and when the honorable return of people who had to flee is done,” he said.

NATO member Turkiye has accused Israel of undermining Syrian peace and rebuilding with its military operations there in recent months and, since late 2023, has also fiercely criticized Israel’s assault on Gaza….