Syria’s new leader holds talks with Erdogan in Turkey

ANKARA — Syria’s interim president, Ahmed Al Sharaa, held talks on Tuesday in Ankara with Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan, his second international trip since ousting Bashar Assad, an official told AFP.

The talks began shortly after Sharaa landed in the Turkish capital, the official said. He arrived on an official Turkish plane, footage from the airport showed.

He flew in from Saudi Arabia, where he was seeking support from the wealthy Gulf nation to finance Syria’s reconstruction and revive its economy after 13 years of civil war.

Turkey, which has had a years-long connection with Sharaa, reopened its diplomatic mission in Syria and sent its spy chief and top diplomat for talks with him just days after his Islamist-rooted HTS overthrew Assad on December 8.

The pair will discuss “joint steps to be taken for economic recovery, sustainable stability and security”, Erdogan’s communications chief Fahrettin Altun said on Monday.

Despite being constrained by its own economic crisis, Turkey is offering to help with Syria’s recovery.

In return, Turkey is keen to secure Damascus’ support against Kurdish militants in north-eastern Syria, where the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have been battling Ankara-backed forces.

Turkey opposes the SDF on grounds its main component, the YPG, is aligned with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, a separatist group outlawed in Turkey.

The SDF controls much of Syria’s oil-producing northeast, where it has enjoyed de facto autonomy for more than a decade.

But Turkey sees it as a danger to its own security and has threatened to take military action to keep Kurdish forces away from its borders despite US efforts to broker a truce.