Syrian President Bashar Assad, right, shakes hands with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
| Photo Credit: AP

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday said he might invite his Syrian counterpart Bashar al-Assad to Turkiye “at any moment”, in a sign of reconciliation after the 2011 war broke ties between Ankara and Damascus.

Mr. Erdogan’s comments come after tensions have mounted over the past week after a mob went on the rampage, vandalising businesses and properties owned by Syrians in a central Anatolian city.

“We may send an invitation (to Assad) at any moment,” Mr. Erdogan told journalists aboard a plane from Berlin where he watched Euro 2024, the official Anadolu news agency and other media reported.

Turkiye originally aimed to topple Mr. Assad’s regime when the Syrian conflict erupted with the violent suppression of peaceful protesters in 2011 and backed rebels calling for his ouster.

But more recently, Ankara has shifted focus to preventing what Mr. Erdogan in 2019 dubbed a “terror corridor” from opening up in northern Syria.

He has long said he could reconsider ties with Mr. Assad as his government is working to ensure safe and voluntary return of Syrian refugees.

Speaking to journalists, Mr. Erdogan said some leaders including Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested to mediate a meeting with Assad in Turkiye.

“Now we have come to such a point that as soon as Bashar al-Assad takes a step towards improving relations with Turkiye, we will show him the same approach,” Mr. Erdogan said.

Violence

Turkish authorities this week detained over 470 people after anti-Syrian riots in several cities sparked by accusations that a Syrian man had allegedly harassed a Syrian minor in Kayseri.

Mr. Erdogan on Monday blamed the opposition for stoking tensions and condemned the anti-Syrian violence as “unacceptable”.

The fate of Syrian refugees is a burning issue in Turkish politics, with Mr. Erdogan’s opponents in last year’s presidential election promising to send them back to Syria.

Turkeiye, which hosts some 3.2 million Syrian refugees according to UN data, has been shaken several times by bouts of xenophobic violence in recent years, often triggered by rumours spreading on social media and instant messaging applications.

The riots in Kayseri spread to several other cities including Istanbul this week while clashes between armed protesters and guards of Turkish positions in Syria’s north killed seven people.

Turkiye has launched a string of offensives in Syria since 2016 targeting Kurdish militias, Islamic State group jihadists and forces loyal to Assad.

Pro-Turkish forces in Syria now control two vast strips of territory along the border.

On Monday, hundreds of Syrians demonstrated throughout the Ankara-controlled area, with some armed protesters attacking Turkish trucks and military posts, and taking down Turkish flags.

Mr. Erdogan has vowed to reveal “which dirty hands” triggered the clashes in northern Syria.

According to the Syrian Observatory, four border crossings with Turkiye have been shut in the wake of the violence. There was no immediate confirmation by the Turkish government.

Istanbul:

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan urged Palestinians to unite amid Israel’s war in Gaza following hours-long talks with Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh in Istanbul on Saturday, his office said. 

Erdogan has failed to establish a foothold as a mediator in the Gaza conflict that has roiled the region, with the Hamas-run Palestinian territory bracing for a new Israeli offensive and a reported Israeli attack on Iran.

Erdogan said Palestinian unity was “vital” following the talks at the Dolmabahce palace on the banks of the Bosphorus strait, which Turkish media reports said lasted more than two and a half hours. 

“The strongest response to Israel and the path to victory lie in unity and integrity,” Erdogan said according to a Turkish presidency statement. 

Hamas — designated a terrorist organisation by the United States, the European Union and Israel — is a rival of the Fatah faction that rules the semi-autonomous Palestinian Authority in the occupied West Bank. 

As fears of a wider regional war grow, Erdogan said recent events between Iran and Israel should not allow Israel to “gain ground and that it is important to act in a way that keeps attention on Gaza”. 

Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz condemned the meeting, writing on X: “Muslim Brotherhood alliance: rape, murder, desecration of corpses and the burning of babies. Erdogan, shame on you!” 

Hamas was founded by members of the Muslim Brotherhood in 1987.

Close ties with Haniyeh

With Qatar saying it will reassess its role as a mediator between Hamas and Israel, Erdogan sent Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan to Doha on Wednesday in a new sign that he wants a role. 

“Even if only I, Tayyip Erdogan, remain, I will continue as long as God gives me my life, to defend the Palestinian struggle and to be the voice of the oppressed Palestinian people,” the president said Wednesday when he announced Haniyeh’s visit. 

Hamas has had an office in Turkey since 2011 when Turkey helped secure the agreement for the group to free Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. 

Erdogan has maintained links with Haniyeh, who has been a frequent visitor.

Fidan was a past head of Turkish intelligence and the country provided information and passports to Hamas officials, including Haniyeh, according to Sinan Ciddi, a Turkey specialist at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington. 

This has never been confirmed by Turkish authorities, however.

Erdogan slams Israel

If Qatar withdraws from mediation efforts, Turkey could seek to increase its mediation profile based on its Hamas links.

Fidan on Saturday held talks with visiting Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry, with both men emphasising the need to deliver more humanitarian aid to devastated Gaza where the threat of famine looms.

Turkey is one of Gaza’s main humanitarian aid partners, sending 45,000 tonnes of supplies and medicine in the region.

Israel has said it is preparing an offensive against the Gazan city of Rafah and the reported Israeli attack on the Iranian province of Isfahan, following Iran’s direct attack on Israel, has only clouded hopes of a peace breakthrough.

But Erdogan can only expect a “very limited” role because of his outspoken condemnation of Israel and its actions in Gaza, according to Ciddi.

Last year, the Turkish leader likened the tactics of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to those of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler and called Israel a “terrorist state” because of its offensive against Hamas after the group’s October 7 attacks on Israel. 

Ciddi said Erdogan would not be welcome in Israel and at most might be able to pass messages between Palestinian and Israel negotiators.

The unprecedented Hamas attacks that sparked the Gaza war resulted in the deaths of 1,170 people in southern Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Hamas also took about 250 hostages. Israel estimates 129 remain in Gaza, including 34 who are presumed dead.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed 34,049 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, mayoral candidate of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), greets his supporters following the early results in front of the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality (IBB) in Istanbul, Turkey on April 1, 2024.
| Photo Credit: REUTERS

Ekrem Imamoglu’s second convincing victory in an Istanbul city election looks set to propel him into the running for the 2028 presidential vote.

The football-loving 52-year-old, who first became the mega-city’s mayor in 2019, on Sunday again defeated Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s chosen candidate in the country’s economic powerhouse despite a concerted effort to unseat him by the veteran president.

“Tomorrow is a new spring day for our country,” Mr. Imamoglu told tens of thousands of euphoric supporters cheering his re-election late on Sunday, wearing his trademark shirtsleeves and rimless glasses.

Mr. Imamoglu, candidate for the social-democratic Republican People’s Party (CHP), had spent much of the campaign targeting Mr. Erdogan rather than his nominal opponent, former Environment Minister Murat Kurum.

Largely unknown in 2019, Mr. Imamoglu that year ended 25 years of rule by Mr. Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) and its allies in the city of 16 million where the president was once mayor.

The smooth talking Imamoglu was initially stripped of his victory when the vote was controversially annulled. But he won by an even bigger margin in a re-run three months later.

He has since become one of Turkiye’s most popular politicians, even as he was targeted with legal action.

An Istanbul court ruled in late 2022 that Mr. Imamoglu had defamed city election officials by calling them “idiots”, sentencing him to nearly three years in jail.

It barred him from politics for the duration of the sentence.

Mr. Imamoglu has appealed, meaning that he has continued to serve as mayor while putting his fate in the hands of judges whose impartially he questioned.

Turkey ‘doesn’t deserve poverty’

In Sunday’s election, Mr. Imamoglu ran as the CHP candidate as he failed to get Turkiye’s fractured opposition parties to rally around his bid.

The size of his victory will also have stunned those erstwhile allies.

A practising Muslim leading a secular outfit, the former businessman can draw support from a wide spectrum of voters.

“He can attract all segments of the opposition electorate, whether it’s Turkish or Kurdish, Sunni or Alevi, young or old,” said Berk Esen, a political scientist at Istanbul’s Sabanci university.

Mr. Imamoglu’s original 2019 win came in an anti-Erdogan wave propelling the opposition into power in Turkey’s major cities — including the capital, Ankara.

A new generation of leaders from the staunchly secular CHP, including Mr. Imamoglu in Istanbul and Mansur Yavas in Ankara, offered a clear alternative to Erdogan’s Islamic-rooted AKP.

Some voters rebelled against sweeping purges that followed a failed putsch in 2016. Others were disillusioned by an economic crisis that has still not let up.

With inflation now above 65% and the lira currency massively devalued, Imamoglu said in January that Mr. Erdogan had “turned the rules of economics upside down”.

“This country doesn’t deserve poverty,” he added.

‘Atomic ant’

Now Mr. Imamoglu is seen as the most likely potential candidate to beat whoever stands for Erdogan’s party in the 2028 presidential election.

Some have accused him of thinking more of his own career than the job in front of him, which he denied by saying he works “like an atomic ant” in reference to a popular cartoon show.

Imamoglu has never hidden his presidential ambitions, but recently told opposition outlet Medyascope that “there are still four years until 2028. It would be unwarranted for me to talk about that today.”

As Erdogan has shown, running Istanbul with its vast population, administration and budget can be a path to national power.

Since Erdogan won a new term in last year’s presidential election, Imamoglu has challenged the leadership of his CHP, calling for change after former leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu was defeated.

“Imamoglu is an effective political operator and at this point in time represents one of the very few glimmers of hope for constituents who oppose Erdogan and the AKP,” Anthony Skinner, director of research at geopolitical advisory firm Marlow Global, told AFP.

The Istanbul mayor has crafted a media image and run viral social media campaigns, that both raised his profile and got on the nerves of many voters.

State media, meanwhile, turned him into a hate figure.

In January 2022, pro-government media were awash with images taken by surveillance cameras of him having dinner with the British ambassador at a fish restaurant.

As Istanbul battled a snowstorm, the images played into the government’s portrayal of the mayor as out-of-touch and Western-backed.

During the election, he had to contend with Erdogan taking credit for many of the important projects that have modernised Istanbul over recent years.

Istanbul:

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday congratulated Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on his re-election and offered to mediate between Moscow and Ukraine, the Turkish presidency announced.

In a telephone conversation, “President Erdogan expressed his belief that the positive evolution of relations between Turkey and Russia were continuing and stated that Turkey was ready to play a facilitator role to return to the negotiating table with Ukraine,” the Turkish presidency said in a statement.

It is not the first time that Erdogan has offered his services as a mediator in the war as he seeks to maintain friendly relations with both Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

All three countries have a coastline on the Black Sea, whose access Turkey controls through the Turkish Straits.

Erdogan welcomed Zelensky to Istanbul at the beginning of this month while Putin was due to visit Turkey in February before he called off the trip.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Istanbul:

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday said Turkey was ready to host peace talks between Russia and Ukraine.

“We are ready to host a peace summit where Russia is also present,” Erdogan told a press conference in Istanbul, alongside his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Kyiv:

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will visit Istanbul on Friday for talks with Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan on the war against Russia and Black Sea navigation, the Turkish presidency said.

“The situation between Ukraine and Russia and the latest contacts regarding the restarting of a secure corridor in the Black Sea” will be at the centre of their meeting, the presidency said on Thursday in a message on X, formerly Twitter.

The two leaders will meet at the Dolmabahce Palace in Istanbul, with a news conference scheduled for 7:00 pm (1600 GMT), the ministry added.

Zelensky last visited Turkey in July 2023 when he held lengthy talks with Erdogan, who also has close ties with Moscow.

When he returned to Kyiv, Zelensky brought back five top commanders from the Azov regiment who were supposed to have remained in Turkey until the end of the conflict under a prisoner exchange deal with Moscow.

Members of the regiment played a key role in defending the city of Mariupol until it fell to the Russians in May 2022.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Istanbul:

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has launched a negotiation process with Hamas for the release of Israeli hostages  kidnapped by the Palestinian militants, an official source told AFP on Wednesday.

“They are negotiating to secure the release of the hostages,” the source said, confirming a report by the private TV channel Haberturk.

Dozens of people have been taken hostage during Hamas’s surprise attack on Israel.

The Turkish President, who has offered to mediate to restore peace, has been stepping up talks with his Middle Eastern counterparts.

Late Wednesday he spoke with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, the Anadolu state news agency reported.

It quoted Erdogan saying that on behalf of Turkey, “we are ready to do everything in our power”, including mediation and “fair arbitration” to end the conflict quickly.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan addresses lawmakers from his ruling AK Party at the Turkish Parliament in Ankara, Turkey on October 11, 2023. Murat Cetinmuhurdar/Presidential Press Office/Handout via REUTERS
| Photo Credit: VIA REUTERS

Turkey’s president on Wednesday vowed to intensify strikes against Kurdish fighters in Syria and Iraq.

Turkey has been bombing sites in northeast Syria since Thursday, hitting civilian and military targets and infrastructure and causing casualties, according to Kurdish authorities.

“We have already intensified air operations and we will continue, and show the terrorists that we can destroy them anywhere and at any moment,” Recep Tayyip Erdogan said, referring to fighters of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) – listed as a terror group by Ankara and its Western allies.

Ankara has said that it launched a new wave of air strikes in retaliation for an attack in Ankara earlier this month that wounded two security personnel.

PKK has claimed responsibility for the attack, the first bombing to hit the Turkish capital since 2016.

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, President of Turkey, addresses the 78th session of the United Nations General Assembly at the United Nations headquarters, on Sept. 19, 2023.
| Photo Credit: AP

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan raised the issue of Kashmir during his address to world leaders at the high-level 78th session of the UN General Assembly session here.

“Another development that will pave the way for regional peace, stability and prosperity in South Asia will be the establishment of a just and lasting peace in Kashmir through dialogue and cooperation between India and Pakistan,” Mr. Erdogan said in his address to the General Debate on September 19.

“As Turkiye, we will continue to support the steps to be taken in this direction,” he said.

His comment comes weeks after he met Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in New Delhi during which both the leaders discussed strengthening trade and infrastructure relations.

Mr. Erdogan said it was a matter of pride that India was playing a role at the United Nations Security Council. He said he favoured making five permanent and 15 “temporary” members as permanent members of the UN Security Council.

“Those 20 (5+15) should be permanent members of the UNSC in rotation. But as you know, the world is bigger than five. When we say the world is larger than five, what we mean is that it’s not only about the U.S., U.K., France, China and Russia,” he said.

In recent years, the Turkish leader has referred to the issue of Kashmir in his address to world leaders at the high-level UN General Assembly session.

Last year, Mr. Erdogan raked up the issue of Kashmir during his address to world leaders at the high-level UN General Assembly session here.

“India and Pakistan, after having established their sovereignty and independence 75 years ago, they still haven’t established peace and solidarity between one another. This is much unfortunate. We hope and pray that a fair and permanent peace and prosperity will be established in Kashmir,” Mr. Erdogan had said.

In 2020, Mr. Erdogan in his pre-recorded video statement to the General Debate had made a reference to Jammu and Kashmir. India had at that time termed it as “completely unacceptable”, saying Turkey should learn to respect the sovereignty of other nations and reflect on its own policies more deeply.

United Nations:

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan raised the issue of Kashmir during his address to world leaders at the high-level 78th session of the UN General Assembly session here.

“Another development that will pave the way for regional peace, stability and prosperity in South Asia will be the establishment of a just and lasting peace in Kashmir through dialogue and cooperation between India and Pakistan,” Erdogan said in his address to the General Debate Tuesday.

“As Turkiye, we will continue to support the steps to be taken in this direction,” he said.

His comment comes weeks after he met Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in New Delhi during which both the leaders discussed strengthening trade and infrastructure relations.

Erdogan said it was a matter of pride that India was playing a role at the United Nations Security Council. He said he favoured making five permanent and 15 “temporary” members as permanent members of the UN Security Council.

“Those 20 (5+15) should be permanent members of the UNSC in rotation. But as you know, the world is bigger than five. When we say the world is larger than five, what we mean is that it’s not only about the US, UK, France, China and Russia,” he said.

In recent years, the Turkish leader has referred to the issue of Kashmir in his address to world leaders at the high-level UN General Assembly session.

Last year, Erdogan raked up the issue of Kashmir during his address to world leaders at the high-level UN General Assembly session here.

“India and Pakistan, after having established their sovereignty and independence 75 years ago, they still haven’t established peace and solidarity between one another. This is much unfortunate. We hope and pray that a fair and permanent peace and prosperity will be established in Kashmir,” Erdogan had said.

In 2020, Erdogan in his pre-recorded video statement to the General Debate had made a reference to Jammu and Kashmir. India had at that time termed it as “completely unacceptable”, saying Turkey should learn to respect the sovereignty of other nations and reflect on its own policies more deeply.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)