President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on Thursday that rebuilding and recovering a terror-free Syria was their sincere expectation as he addressed a summit of D-8 countries’ leaders in Cairo, Egypt.
“We should stand with the people of Syria in this difficult process,” the president added.
Erdoğan stated that people in Syria needed unity to recover their war-weary country. “As its neighbor and brothers and sisters, we are ready to contribute to this process. We sincerely expect the building of a Syria liberated from terrorism and a Syria where people of different religions, faith and ethnicity live together in peace. We attach importance to the territorial integrity of Syria,” he said.
The president underlined that the world needs global peace, but “unfortunately, institutions tasked with ensuring global security and stability failed to fulfill their responsibility in the faces of crises and wars,” he said. His remarks were a reiteration of Türkiye’s criticism of global order, especially in the failure to stop Israel’s genocide against Palestinians.
Türkiye is mobilizing all means to help rebuild neighboring Syria in its new era as the country sets out on an uncertain path after anti-regime forces ousted Bashar Assad from power earlier this month.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has ordered his ministries to explore steps Türkiye can take for Syria, both political and economic, as well as ways to provide support through various institutions that can travel to Syria when necessary, a report in the Turkish newspaper Sabah said.
Assad’s overthrow brought to a stunning end five decades of rule by the Assad clan that was marked by fear and horrific abuses. But the joy sparked by his departure has not ended the woes of a country wracked by years of civil war and which has become heavily dependent on aid.
Syria was also handed crippling sanctions first in 2011 in response to Assad’s violent crackdown on protests. While the European Union mulls lifting some of the heavier sanctions, the Syrian economy is wrecked, poverty is widespread, and inflation and unemployment are high.
Türkiye, which has called for equal representation of national will in Syria, said the country “can only recover through the assistance of neighboring countries and the international community.”
“Sixty-one years of oppression and darkness ended, but the Baathist regime left a trainwreck behind. We are talking about a Syria tired of 13 years of conflict, a Syria where about 1 million people were killed, and half of the population is displaced,” Erdoğan said Tuesday at a news conference with European Union Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen in the capital of Ankara.
“Syria should swiftly recover through the strong support of its neighbors, friendly countries and the international community, including the EU and international bodies. The international community failed to convey sufficient support to the people of Syria while they were being slaughtered over the past 13 years. Now they can compensate for it through support to reconstruction, recovery of Syria,” Erdoğan said.
D-8 cooperation
Erdoğan stressed the need for stronger international cooperation and also highlighted recent advancements within the D-8 organization, particularly the approval of a trade pact with Egypt. “With Egypt also approving the preferential trade agreement, it will now be possible to implement the agreement on a much broader scale,” he said, underscoring the potential for expanded economic ties among member countries. The Turkish president further emphasized the importance of including less-developed nations in global initiatives. “We aim to contribute to global justice and development by including the least developed countries in TEKNOFEST, the world’s largest aviation and space festival,” he said, stressing the Turkish-based festival’s role in promoting technological progress across borders.
On regional issues, Erdoğan hailed Azerbaijan joining the D-8, calling it a significant step for the organization’s strength. “With Azerbaijan, which has made significant strides in recent years and joined our organization. We are stronger today than in the past,” he said.
The D-8 was primarily founded as an economic body, and its extraordinary meetings on Gaza have been the first of their kind solely focused on a political issue. Türkiye was among the founders of the grouping in Istanbul in 1997. Late prime minister Necmettin Erbakan, a political mentor of Erdoğan, spearheaded its foundation, a fact Erdoğan cited in his address to the opening of the summit on Thursday.
At the summit, Erdoğan is accompanied by Trade Minister Ömer Bolat, National Intelligence Organization head İbrahim Kalın, Presidency’s Communications Directorate chair Fahrettin Altun and chief presidential advisor for foreign policy and security Akif Çağatay Kılıç. Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, who arrived in Cairo one day earlier for another meeting of D-8, was among those welcoming Erdoğan at the airport in the Egyptian capital.
