President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan reiterated Türkiye’s will to normalize ties with the Bashar Assad regime in Syria. However, the Turkish leader added Türkiye would not bow to the regime’s demands of leaving Northern Syria "as long as terrorists are near our borders."

Erdoğan spoke to reporters at Istanbul’s Atatürk Airport on Monday as he was about to leave for a comprehensive Gulf tour including Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates (UAE), which restored ties with the Assad regime.

Answering a question, Erdoğan said Türkiye did not have a stance to "close the door" to the Bashar Assad regime with whom it severed ties after a civil war broke out more than a decade ago.

"The door is open and we support quadrilateral meetings. I do not oppose talks with Bashar Assad," Erdoğan said. "But what matters here is their approach. Assad wants Türkiye out of Northern Syria. This is out of the question. We are fighting terrorism there. How can we leave (Syria) while terrorists are on our immediate borders?" he said.

Erdoğan also said that he wondered whether Assad would tell the same thing to "other countries." He did not elaborate, but Erdoğan was clearly referring to the United States, which maintains a presence in the same region where it openly supports the terrorist group YPG/PKK under the pretext of fighting Daesh.

Since the civil war broke out in Syria, Türkiye has backed the opposition as the Bashar Assad regime frequently denounced Ankara’s support that paved the way for liberating Syria’s north from YPG/PKK as well as Daesh.

Relations between the two, however, further thawed after the Feb. 6 earthquakes that killed more than 56,000 people combined in both countries. Turkish officials have recently been floating the idea of cooperating with Damascus on counterterrorism efforts.

Russia’s long-standing effort to open a channel of dialogue between Türkiye and the Bashar Assad regime paid off last year, as the defense ministers and intelligence chiefs of Türkiye, Russia and the Bashar Assad regime met in Moscow. Any normalization between Ankara and Damascus would reshape the decadelong Syrian war. Turkish backing has been vital to sustaining moderate Syrian opposition in their last significant territorial foothold in the northwest after Assad defeated opponents across the rest of the country, aided by Russia and Iran. In the latest quadrilateral meeting in Kazakhstan’s Astana between foreign ministry delegations in June, Türkiye, Russia, Iran and Syria condemned the actions of nations supporting "terrorist entities" in northeastern Syria. The guarantor countries reject "illegitimate self-rule initiatives" in Syria implemented under the pretext of fighting terrorism, a joint statement read after the meeting. Reiterating their resolve to combat terrorism, the sides added, "We stand against separatist agendas that threaten the national security of neighboring countries." The guarantor countries on Wednesday held bilateral meetings and discussed developments "in the field" and Syria’s immediate region. A roadmap for the normalization of ties between the Damascus-based regime and Ankara was also on the agenda besides the release of hostages and missing persons, the humanitarian situation, the rebuilding of Syria and the establishment of conditions for the return of Syrian refugees.

The YPG is PKK’s Syrian affiliate and the United States has strongly backed it under the pretext of fighting the Daesh terror group. Thanks to U.S. help worth millions of dollars, the YPG has grown stronger in northeastern Syria. Along with the PKK, it still controls much of the war-torn country’s east, making it impossible for Assad to establish territorial integrity. The guarantor countries agreed to collaborate "further" to sustainably normalize the situation in the Idlib de-escalation zone, neighboring Türkiye, and strongly rejected the "illegal seizure and transfer of oil revenue that is supposed to belong to Syria," referring to the PKK/YPG’s control of oil fields in Hasakah, Raqqa and Deir el-Zour districts.

Diplomatic contacts intensified between Damascus and Arab countries following the Feb. 6 earthquakes that hit Türkiye and Syria, killing over 50,000 people, including over 6,000 in Syria. In addition to Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt have also renewed ties with Damascus, following normalization efforts from the UAE and Bahrain years ago. Still, Kuwait, Morocco and Qatar remain opposed to normalizing relations with Syria, and Qatar continues to be a key backer of Syrian opposition groups fighting Assad.

In May, the Arab League readmitted Syria to the fold after over a decade of suspension, opening doors to ending the country’s regional and diplomatic isolation over the civil war. In November 2011, the 22-member body suspended Damascus over its crackdown on peaceful protests that began earlier that year and spiraled into a civil conflict that killed more than 500,000 people, displaced millions, and battered the country’s infrastructure and industry. While the front lines have mostly quietened, large parts of the country’s north remain outside government control, and no political solution has yet been reached to the 12-year conflict.

Assad has been politically isolated since the war began, but recent months have seen a flurry of diplomatic activity ahead of an Arab League summit in the Saudi city of Jeddah on May 19. The last Arab League summit Assad attended was in 2010, while the opposition attended the pan-Arab group’s summit in Doha in 2013, sparking a furious reaction from Damascus.

Regional capitals have gradually been warming to Assad as he has stubbornly held on to power and clawed back territory lost earlier in the conflict with crucial support from Iran and Russia. The UAE, which reestablished ties in late 2018, has led the recent charge to reintegrate Damascus into the Arab fold. The Feb. 6 earthquake that wreaked devastation in Türkiye and Syria sparked Arab outreach to the Assad regime, while intensified diplomatic activity has been underway in the region since a March decision by rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran to resume ties.