ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Syria's new foreign minister announced he would visit Turkey on Wednesday on the first official trip to the country since Bashar al-Assad's ouster.
"Tomorrow, we will pay our first official visit to the Republic of Türkiye, which has never left the Syrian people behind for fourteen years, to represent the New Syria,” Asaad al-Shaibani wrote on X.
After Syria’s civil war broke out in 2011, Turkey began supporting armed groups fighting the Assad regime, including Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham which spearheaded a lightning offensive that led to the collapse of the Assad regime in less than two weeks in early December.
Turkey is home to nearly three million Syrians who fled their country after the start of the conflict. Thousands have returned since Assad's overthrow last month.
Since 2016, Turkey has had boots on the ground in the northern regions of Syria, carrying out multiple operations against Kurdish forces, which Ankara accuses of being an extension of its domestic foe, the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).
Clashes have erupted between the US-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and Turkey and its affiliated rebel groups in SDF-controlled areas in northeast Syria since the start of the ex-rebel groups' campaign in late November.
Ankara has said it would press on with military preparations in northern Syria against the SDF until the group is disarmed, claiming that the Kurdish-led force is a security threat to Turkey.
Turkish intelligence chief Ibrahim Kalın and Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan were the first to visit Syria’s de facto ruler Ahmed al-Sharaa in Damascus, a few days after they ousted Assad.
Shaibani has already visited Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Jordan since the start of the month, and a visit to Iraq has been postponed.
The top diplomats of Italy, France, and Germany have visited Damascus.
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