Detente with Syria leaves refugees in fear of forced returns

Syrians across the opposition and in the Kurdish north of the country have reacted with alarm to Turkish moves to normalise relations with Damascus amid claims the overtures will lead to mass demographic swaps and the forced return of millions of refugees.

- Martin Chulov

The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, late last month added his voice to a growing chorus of officials who had markedly shifted rhetoric on the Syrian leader, Bashar al-Assad, claiming: “Political dialogue or diplomacy cannot be cut off between states.”

He was followed by Turkey’s foreign minister, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, who said Ankara would not set “conditions for dialogue” with Syria, being guided instead by achieving its goals. “The country needs to be cleared of terrorists … People need to be able to return.”

The remarks were the clearest signal yet that Turkey has embarked on a new policy that intends to stabilise Assad, after being a chief regional proponent of his ousting for more than a decade.

Russia and Iran have in recent years ushered Assad into a pyrrhic victory on the country’s battlefields , and the two states and Turkey now have a prominent stake in a fractured postwar country where large parts of the population remain outside the control of the central government.