Syrian opposition activists alarmed as Turkey moves to normalise relations with Damascus

Syrian opposition activists have reacted with alarm over Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s plan to normalise relations with Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.

Mr Erdogan heralded a 180-degree shift in policy on Friday when he said: “For us, the issue is not about defeating or not defeating Assad.” He called for opening channels between Ankara and Damascus after a decade of violence.

While escalating attacks on Syrian Kurdish forces in the north of the country, he tried to reassure the Syrian government by stating: “We do not have eyes on the territory of Syria because the people of Syria are our brothers.”

Mr Erdogan’s remarks followed a Turkish strike on a border post manned by the Syrian army that, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, killed 17 troops.

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Turkey’s sudden shift was signposted earlier by foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, who said that Ankara had always supported a political solution to the Syrian conflict. He also urged Mr Assad and his opponents to reconcile, and reiterated Ankara’s commitment to Syrian sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Syrians living in Turkish-controlled areas responded with mass protests while veteran expatriate opposition figure George Sabra wrote on Facebook that Turkish leaders may seek to promote reconciliation, but Syrians “have a different cause for which they have paid and continue to pay the highest price”. According to the UN, 306,887 civilians have died in Syria’s war and 13.7 million have been uprooted out of a pre-war population of 22 million.

Mr Erdogan is backed by Turkish political leaders from across the political spectrum while Russia, Iran, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates are involved in his effort. After unrest erupted in Syria in March 2011, Mr Erdogan recruited Syrian army officers and soldiers into the Free Syrian Army in an attempt to overthrow the government and founded the Muslim Brotherhood-dominated Syrian National Council to take power. His intervention encouraged regional and international actors to field a multiplicity of anti-government militias, transforming Syria’s civil conflict into a proxy war.

In response, Iran deployed ground forces and Russia air cover for the Syrian army, enabling the government to gain control of 70 per cent of Syrian territory. About 5 per cent of the northwest and north is controlled directly or indirectly by Turkey and 25 per cent of the northeast by the US-supported Syrian Kurdish militia.

Mr Erdogan seeks to promote reconciliation in exchange for Iranian, Russian and Syrian government support for a Turkish military offensive against the Syrian Kurds, whom he accuses of being linked to Turkish Kurdish separatists.

He expects his campaign could distract Turks from the country’s financial crash, which many blame in part on his intervention in the Syrian conflict, which has driven 3.5 million Syrians to take refuge in Turkey. As the Turkish currency has lost 25 per cent of value and inflation has soared to 80 per cent, assaults on Syrians have increased and Mr Erdogan’s political rivals have pledged to send Syrians home.

Aware that his political future is at stake, Mr Erdogan has tried to reassure Turkish voters ahead of next June’s presidential and parliamentary elections that his reconciliation policy will secure this objective.