Politique Internationale, no. 189 – Autumn 2025
Since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in December 2024, Syria has become a battleground between Israel and Turkey. Ankara considers itself the sponsor of the transitional government and exercises a form of protectorate over the country. Taking advantage of the war in Gaza, President Erdogan is presenting himself as the champion of the Palestinian cause[1] and making inflammatory statements for domestic consumption, prompting the partisan press to call on the Turkish army to become directly involved in defending the enclave[2] . This has reached the point where some Israeli observers see Turkey as a threat on a par with Iran. In this tense context, it is unclear whether the current talks on a possible security agreement between Israel and Syria, which began in Paris last August, will be successful in the near future.
Turkey in Syria
It was on Syrian territory under Turkish control that Ahmed al-Charaa’s Hayat Tahrir al Cham (HTC), formerly a branch of al-Qaeda, was created in 2017. This entity was the dominant force in the governorate of Idlib, in northwestern Syria. The Kurds, who made up the bulk of the province’s population, had been driven out by Turkish interventions and replaced by « internally displaced persons »[3] , Sunni civilians and Islamist jihadist rebels controlled by Turkey. It was from Idlib that the HTC forces set out and, with almost no fighting, precipitated Bashar al-Assad’s flight on December 8, 2024. Turkey was the first country to recognize the legitimacy of al-Sharaa’s government. When welcoming Erdogan to the White House on September 25, 2025, Donald Trump said, referring to the new Syrian government, « [Mr. Erdogan] has taken control of Syria and he doesn’t want to take credit for it. You know, all these people are his helpers. » The US president was careful to point out that he had lifted sanctions against Syria—imposed during Bashar al-Assad’s time—at Ankara’s request. He said, « The future of Syria is in Erdogan’s hands. » It was during this visit that the US president declared his opposition to Israel’s plan to annex the West Bank… as if to express his consideration for his Turkish counterpart.
Ankara is not ready to abandon its position as Syria’s self-proclaimed protector. Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan never misses an opportunity to assert that his country will not allow any action that could undermine the territorial integrity of its neighbor. In fact, Ankara and Damascus are stepping up their military and economic cooperation agreements. Upon his return from China, where he attended the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared in early September that « Turkey and Syria will not tolerate any attempts at destabilization. »
1) Turkey’s aims in Syria are political, military, and economic
Political aims
Neutralizing the Kurds in northern Syria was already one of Turkey’s objectives when it began to get involved in the Syrian uprising in 2011. On the one hand, it put pressure on Bashar al-Assad to accept a compromise and, on the other, it invited the rebel leaders to begin talks in Istanbul. This approach was part of Ankara’s power politics and signaled its desire to reconfigure the territorialization of border populations[4] destabilized by the influx of Syrian refugees[5] . A year after the start of the rebellion, the Sadat militia—a kind of Turkish Wagner—was created with the mission of conducting unofficial actions abroad[6] . The mercenaries of this security company close to President Erdogan were recruited from among Syrian rebels. Their operations have contributed decisively to strengthening Turkey’s influence in Libya[7] , Nagorno-Karabakh, and, most recently, Niger[8] .
For the time being, Ankara is encouraging al-Sharaa’s provisional government to establish a Sunni-led, Islamist-oriented unitary regime that brings together all ethnic and religious groups: Alawites (Shiites), Druze (Shiites), Christians, and Kurds (Shiites and Sunnis). Turkey hopes this will lead to the dissolution of the Kurdish Autonomous Administration (AANES, commonly known as Rojava) which borders it in northwestern Syria, as well as the disarmament of the Kurds and their Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) which, with US support, had successfully fought Daesh. This is one of the reasons behind the negotiations initiated by the Turkish state in early 2025 to persuade Abdullah Öcalan, founder and historic leader of the PKK, who has been imprisoned for 26 years on the island of Imralı in the Sea of Marmara, to call on the members of his organization to lay down their arms. On February 27, Öcalan announced the end of the armed struggle and the dissolution of the PKK. The actors involved in this historic turning point and the Kurdish representatives have been tight-lipped about the concessions that were granted or denied to them.
By promoting this dramatic turn of events, President Erdogan is pursuing two distinct objectives. First, he believes that this move will secure the votes of Kurdish members of parliament in the National Assembly and enable him to achieve the two-thirds majority ([9] ) required to amend the Constitution. Indeed, Erdogan makes no secret of his intention to run for a third term in the 2028 presidential elections. On the international stage, he hopes that the dissolution of the PKK will convince the Syrian Democratic Forces—which were a « branch » of the PKK before distancing themselves—to lay down their arms and join the Syrian army.
On March 10, an SDF delegation led by Mazloum Abdi[10] signed an agreement with President Ahmed al-Charaa to integrate Kurdish civil and military institutions into the Syrian state. However, the Syrian government refused to participate in talks on this subject scheduled for early August in Paris and demanded that future negotiations be held in Damascus. This decision came the day after a conference organized by the Kurdish administration, which was attended by several Syrian religious communities. Between the two dates, serious violence was committed against the Alawite , Druze[11] (March-April 2025), and Bedouin[12] (July 2025) minorities by Sunni Islamist forces affiliated with or close to the government, causing the deaths of nearly 3,000 people.
This violence against non-Sunni communities has raised serious doubts about the ability of al-Sharaa’s government to consolidate its power and ensure the security of the various populations. The Syrian army is far too weak. In any case, it is not capable of confronting the Kurdish forces. The SDF has around 50,000 to 60,000 motivated men and women, trained and partially equipped by the Pentagon. Amberin Zaman, a journalist at Al-Monitor, analyzes the situation as follows: they « remain ready for combat after five years of war against ISIS and are preparing for possible attacks from Turkey and the new Syrian government. On the other hand, the poor performance of the Syrians in Soueïda[13] has revealed the weakness and lack of discipline of the Syrian forces. Charaa has always been reluctant to attack the Kurds and has long resisted Turkish pressure to do so. A war with the Kurds would weaken him even further at a time when the economy is in ruins, billions of dollars in promises from the Gulf remain unfulfilled, and public sector salaries are still unpaid.[14]
Military targets
On April 5, Israel bombed bases where Turkey planned to deploy air forces similar to those it has in Libya, revealing the extent of Ankara’s military ambitions. Three sites had been considered: the T-4 base and Palmyra in the Syrian province of Homs, as well as the main airport in the province of Hama. The strikes on the T-4 base, which « destroyed the runway, control tower, hangars, and aircraft grounded on the tarmac »[15] , put a temporary end to these Turkish plans.
Shortly after the bombings, the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs described Israel as « the greatest threat to regional security. » These remarks were tempered the following day by Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, who told Reuters that Turkey did not want a confrontation with Israel in Syria[16] . For his part, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar accused Ankara of seeking to establish a « Turkish protectorate »[17] .
On August 13, 2025, the Turkish and Syrian defense ministers signed a « memorandum of understanding for training and advice » in Ankara. The text includes provisions on « the modernization of Syria’s military capabilities, in particular through the exchange of military personnel, advanced training of Syrian personnel in cybersecurity, counterterrorism, demining, engineering, logistics, general technical assistance, and arms transfers. »[18] . This cooperation will also involve the fight against ISIS, whose sleeper cells on Syrian territory are showing signs of reawakening, against the backdrop of the withdrawal of US forces from northeastern Syria and despite Ankara’s threats against the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which still refuse to lay down their arms.
Economic targets
Ravaged by fourteen years of civil war, Syria’s economy lies in ruins. Turkey has demonstrated its expertise in post-conflict reconstruction, particularly in Libya. It is likely that this experience will serve it well in Syria, even though the context is very different.
Lacking energy resources itself and dependent mainly on Russia for gas, Turkey began supplying natural gas from Azerbaijan to Syria on August 2, 2025. This initiative is part of Qatar’s program to finance gas supplies for electricity production in Syria.[19] . Natural gas will be exported from Azerbaijan to Aleppo via Kilis, a Turkish city located in southeastern Anatolia, near the Syrian border. The announcement was made by Turkish Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar, a close relative of President Erdogan’s son-in-law and manufacturer of the eponymous Bayraktar TB2 drones. According to him, in the initial phase, nearly two billion cubic meters of natural gas could be exported to Syria each year[20] . In this arrangement, Ankara has leveraged its connections with Qatar, the headquarters of the Muslim Brotherhood, which it had supported when Saudi Arabia and the Emirates broke off relations in 2017-2021. As for Azerbaijan, its president, Ilham Aliyev, owes his victory in Karabakh (2023) to the military support provided by Turkey with its Albayrak TB2 drones.
In early July 2025, following negotiations between Damascus and Ankara, Turksat, Turkey’s leading satellite operator, launched high-speed internet access in Syria. Syrian digital public services are now available online at thanks to the capabilities of the Turksat 5B satellite, including in remote areas of the country. The Turkish operator plans to continue installing satellite terminals throughout the country in order to expand its coverage and develop Syria’s digital infrastructure. This initiative is undoubtedly more political than economic in scope.
[21]As for financing the reconstruction, Turkey remains dependent on the Gulf countries. Saudi Arabia has invested $6.4 billion in real estate and infrastructure development projects. Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, for their part, have signed a $14 billion agreement covering the public transport and real estate sectors.
Israel-Syria: peace in sight?
In contrast to Turkish-Syrian relations, which are based on cultural affinities and a shared Ottoman history, ties between Israel and Syria are defined by a state of ongoing war, with Damascus never having recognized the Jewish state since its creation in 1948.
In the four months following Assad’s overthrow, Israel destroyed much of Syria’s heavy weapons and military equipment, strengthened its presence in the southwest of the country, and built closer ties with Syria’s Druze community. The IDF sent troops into the demilitarized buffer zone on the Golan Heights, on the edge of the part of the plateau that Israel has occupied since 1967. In July, a wing of the presidential palace was targeted, as was the Syrian army headquarters in Damascus, in order to force government troops, which had been deployed in the Druze city of Suwayda, to withdraw. In Syria, although the Druze, a community descended from a branch of Shiite Islam, represent only about 3% of the population, the relative autonomy they enjoyed under Bashar al-Assad’s dictatorship makes them suspect in the eyes of the new Sunni regime. They have their own militias and are trying to avoid forced conscription into the new Syrian army. [22]Israel « protects » this community because some 150,000 Druze live in Israel, where they are better integrated than Sunni Arabs and Christians.
One may doubt the ability of al-Sharaa’s government to integrate these Kurdish or Druze armed forces, whether militias or mercenaries, into a Syrian army that claims to be unified. One may also question the degree of emancipation of the new master of Damascus, who overthrew Bashar al-Assad, from the jihadist forces that brought him to power. Apart from al-Sharaa’s abandonment of the turban in favor of a suit and tie, the transitional government has shown little sign of a new identity distinct from the radical fundamentalism of its former allies, al-Qaeda and the Islamic State.
Nevertheless, a ceasefire was declared by the authorities on July 19 after Washington announced that it had negotiated a truce between Israel and Syria to prevent an escalation.
Since then, meetings have been held between senior Israeli and Syrian officials under the auspices of the United States. The official Syrian news agency Sana announced on August 19 that Syrian Foreign Minister Assaad Hasan Al-Chaibani was meeting in Paris with an Israeli delegation led by Ron Dermer, Israel’s Minister of Strategic Affairs, to discuss « de-escalation between the two neighboring countries and non-interference in Syrian internal affairs » as well as « stability in the region. » Charaa himself confirmed on August 24 reports that his government was in « advanced » talks with Israel on a security agreement based on the 1974 Israeli-Syrian disengagement lines [23] . However, he downplayed the prospects for a peace agreement with Israel in the short term[24] . Israel does not feel bound by the ongoing talks either and continues its incursions into Syrian territory. On August 28, Israeli ground troops carried out an operation on a site near Damascus that had already been bombed previously. The Israeli Ministry of Defense admitted that the army was conducting military actions in parallel with the ongoing discussions.
For the time being, the Syrian and Israeli positions still seem far apart.
1) The Syrians are demanding that Israel withdraw to the 1974 armistice lines. Israel, for its part, insists on maintaining its presence at the summit of Mount Hermon.
2) Israel is demanding security guarantees for Syria’s Druze minority. The Jewish state justifies its position by citing the Suwayda massacre, which left 1,400 people dead in mid-July 2025, violence in which government forces were allegedly complicit. The fact that the spiritual leader of Israel’s Druze community, Sheikh Muwaffaq Tarif, is present in Paris reflects the influence of this minority on Israeli politics.
3) In the name of defending Syrian Druze, Israel is calling for the demilitarization of the area stretching from the Syrian part of the Golan Heights to south of Damascus, as well as the creation of a « humanitarian corridor » including the province of Suwayda.
The Syrian government refuses to make such a concession, which it believes would allow Israel to venture into its territory. Moreover, this proposal is not unanimously supported in Israel, where there are fears that the Jewish state would find itself de facto responsible for the security of the Druze in Syria.
Despite everything, Israel and Syria continue to engage in dialogue. It is true that both countries have an interest in concluding a security agreement. Charaa needs international recognition of his new government and investment to rebuild the country. As for Israel, the demilitarization of southern Syria would protect it from the entrenchment of Islamist forces and the deployment of strategic weapons that could interfere with the air corridor used by its fighter jets to reach Iran.
But progress has been slow because, from the outset, Turkey has cast a shadow over the talks. The Israelis seem convinced that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will not want to relinquish any of his country’s influence in Syria. They also know that Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan is the key figure in the situation and that he is the one pulling the strings in Damascus. A senior Israeli diplomatic source reportedly told Al-Monitor that the Israelis want to prevent the Iranian-dominated axis from being replaced by a Sunni coalition led by the Muslim Brotherhood, stretching from Qatar to Damascus and extending to Ankara. However, Turkish influence in Syria is considered much more acceptable to Israel than Iran’s was. « Although Erdogan has designated Israel as an enemy, we have no intention of going to war with Turkey, even if anything is possible in the Middle East, » the same source reportedly said[25] .
If anything is possible in the Middle East, why shouldn’t lasting peace between Syria and Israel be possible?
[1] Relations between Israel and Turkey have deteriorated significantly over the past decade. They have reached a breaking point since the Gaza war. Ankara is hosting Hamas leaders, providing them with logistical and operational support. However, this article focuses on Turkish-Israeli relations concerning Syria. Therefore, disagreements that do not relate to Syrian issues will not be analyzed.
[2] For example, on August 1, 2025, the Turkish president declared, « Inshallah, we will pray (namaz) together soon in Gaza to give thanks for our victory. » On August 5, the daily newspaper Yeni Şafak (New Dawn) published « From now on, every new step must strike Israel. Openly attacking Israel has become inevitable » (translated from Turkish by Nora Seni).
[3] According to a 2022 estimate, the governorate of Idlib has 2,927,392 inhabitants, including 1,899,350 « internally displaced persons. » This term refers to people who have been forced to flee their homes but remain in their country of origin.
[4] « In 2019, Erdogan developed a plan to resettle a large portion of the 4 million Syrian refugees who have been welcomed since the beginning of the conflict in a 30 km strip of territory south of the Turkish-Syrian border. According to this plan, 140 villages and ten centers were to be built for 5,000 to 30,000 inhabitants in this strip of land dubbed the « safe zone » by Turkey. See Nora Seni, « Turkey’s New Migration Policy: A Corollary to the Invasion of Northern Syria, » Observatoire de la Turquie contemporaine, October 8, 2019.
[5] See Lori Bastianutti, « Syrian refugees in Turkey. Asylum strategy of a state in search of power, » doctoral thesis defended on September 4, 2025, at the French Institute of Geopolitics at Paris 8 University.
[6] Former Brigadier General of the Turkish Armed Forces Adnan Tanrıverdi, the founder of Sadat, was also President Erdogan’s chief advisor between 2016 and 2020.
[7] Nora Seni, « Turkey in Libya in the Biden era, » Hérodote, 2021/3 no. 182, pp. 149-161.
[8] Nicolas Bourcier, « Sadat, the Turkish Wagner whose shadow looms over the Sahel, » Le Monde, June 7, 2024.
[9] Two-thirds corresponds to 400 votes out of 600. This majority allows the proposed amendment to be adopted directly. A three-fifths majority is sufficient, provided it is confirmed by referendum.
[10] Commander-in-chief of the SDF.
[11] The Alawites are a minority branch of Shia Islam from which the Assad family descends.
[12] The Druze make up about 3% of the Syrian population. This religious community, which originated in Shiite Islam, « borrows from Hinduism as well as Judaism, Christianity, and even ancient Greek philosophy, » explains Marc Lavergne, emeritus research director at the CNRS (Le Monde, July 19, 2025). These are characteristics which, in the eyes of Sunni Islam, especially if it is strict, can lead to them being considered heretics. In any case, on July 20, 2025, they were targeted by Sunni tribal militias and, in all likelihood, by Islamist government troops.
[13] Al-Sharaa’s forces were unable to control the violence, which was ended by the intervention of the Israeli army.
[14] Amberin Zaman, « Will Turkey follow through on threats to attack Syrian Kurds, » Al-Monitor, August 15, 2025 (translated by Nora Seni).
[15] See Reuters and Times of Israel, April 5, 2025.
[16] Ibid. Defense Minister Israel Katz described the airstrikes as a warning, saying that Israel would not allow its security to be jeopardized.
[18] Barin Kayaoglu, Al-Monitor, August 23, 2025.
[19] A first phase was launched in March via Jordan and provided 400 megawatts of electricity per day.
[20] « The gas will power a power plant with a capacity of around 1,200 megawatts, meeting the electricity needs of around five million households (…) », explained Mr. Bayraktar. In « Turkey has begun supplying Azerbaijani gas to Syria, » Istanbul/AFP France 24, published on August 2, 2025.
[21] « Syria. Elections will not heal the wounds, » Courrier International, September 11-17, 2025.
[22] « In fact, 30% of Israeli Druze men work in national defense. » « Jobs are also reserved for them in the police and prison service, and of the 120 members elected to the Knesset, four are Druze, even though the Druze community represents only 2% of the Israeli population. » « The dilemma of the Druze, an Arab minority and historical supporter of Israel, » Inès Gil, Les Clés du Moyen-Orient, May 17, 2017.
[23] This line does not constitute a border per se, but rather a military separation line (ceasefire). Israel withdrew from the territories occupied during the Yom Kippur War (1973) but retained the rest of the Golan Heights, which it had captured in 1967. Kuneitra was returned to Syria. Israel retained control of Majdal Shams, a village south of Mount Hermon in the Golan Heights inhabited mainly by Druze Arabs, as well as the Jewish settlement of Qatzrin.
[24] Ben Caspit, « Will Israel’s potential Syria security deal intensify its rivalry with Turkey? », Al-Monitor, August 26, 2025.
[25] Ibid.