Türkiye on Monday rejected claims it backed the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which led the anti-regime advance that overthrew Bashar Assad in Syria.
“Claims that Türkiye is behind HTS movements are entirely false,” the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) spokesperson Ömer Çelik told reporters in Ankara.
The AK Party spokesman said Türkiye has been undertaking initiatives to stop the bloodshed in Syria, as he pointed out that the Assad regime’s “rotten” structure paved the way for an easy takeover by the anti-regime forces, without any Turkish involvement.
“HTS mobilized to take areas under regime control and advanced after realizing the lack of regime forces’ presence,” Çelik said. He continued by saying that regime forces laid down their arms and fled, leaving the regions without anyone in charge.
“Claiming that Türkiye was behind this is a misunderstanding,” he said.
Çelik reiterated Türkiye’s support for a unified Syria, saying that everyone should respect Syria’s territorial integrity.
He also said the world needs to be realistic about its expectations of the country.
“They want a Scandinavian democracy, but the conditions over there are evident,” he said, adding that the first step should be to support a constitutional order and provide assistance so the country can become a democracy.
“What the countries of the region and Western countries must do is to provide assistance to Syria. This is the key point,” Çelik said, adding that terrorist groups must be destroyed.
Çelik also lambasted the “Western logic” of using a terrorist group, the PKK/YPG against another terrorist group, Daesh, “just because it’s keeping Daesh terrorists in prison” in Syria.
“Western countries must stop using Syria as if it’s a daycare for Daesh terrorists,” Çelik said.
The YPG, the PKK’s Syrian offshoot, has sought to exploit the anti-regime offensive to expand its occupation in northern Syria, but its efforts have largely been thwarted by the Syrian National Army (SNA), which fought off its invasion in Tal Rifaat and Manbij regions.
Turkish airstrikes regularly target the PKK/YPG hideouts in northern Syria to prevent the formation of a “terror corridor” along the borders and Ankara often warns the group, is a threat to Syria’s territorial integrity and sovereignty.
Ankara has been a major player in Syria’s conflict, having secured the northwest and maintaining a working relationship with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which spearheaded the offensive that brought down Assad.
Assad has fled Syria, closing an era in which suspected dissidents were jailed or killed and capping nearly 14 years of war that killed more than 500,000 people and displaced millions.