(OPINION) Turkey’s defence minister said he planned to meet his Syrian, Russian, and Iranian counterparts in Moscow on Tuesday, the state-owned Anadolu news agency said, amid efforts to rebuild Ankara-Damascus ties after years of animosity during the Syrian war. According to Reuters, Anadolu cited Defence Minister Hulusi Akar as saying the countries’ intelligence chiefs will also attend the meeting in Moscow.
This is a format that dates from last year as Russia seeks to normalize ties between Turkey and Syria. Turkey has been participating in the talks in the past but they have not advanced as far as Moscow would like. Turkey faces elections in May and had a massive earthquake in February that has reduced Ankara’s focus on these talks.
According to Turkey’s defense minister, Ankara is preparing for a meeting to be attended by the defense ministers and intelligence chiefs of the countries. Anadolu media in Turkey reported the meeting, saying that a “meeting of defense ministers and intelligence chiefs of Turkey, Russia, Syria and Iran will be held in Moscow on Tuesday.”
According to the Jerusalem Post, The last meeting of the defense ministers was in December last year, although Iran was not present. Hulusi Akar said that Iran is participating, making the meeting a “quartet.”
Ankara claims that it supports Syrians returning to Syria “voluntarily.” Since the start of the Syrian civil war, millions of Syrians have fled to Turkey. Turkey hosted them but over time, their presence has led to controversies. Ankara has cracked down on their freedom, part of a wider crackdown and rising authoritarianism in Turkey.
After the recent earthquakes, many Syrians lived in areas that were destroyed and they made up thousands of the casualties of the quake. Many returned to Syria to bury loved ones. This led to even more focus on their plight.
The difficulty for Ankara is that it has openly supported the Syrian rebels since 2012. It has also sought to shift the rebels and co-opt them as proxies to use them to fight the US-backed SDF and other Kurdish groups such as the YPG.
Turkey calls the YPG and SDF “terrorists.” The Syrian regime meanwhile wants Turkey to withdraw from parts of northern Syria it has occupied for the last seven years.
All these countries will be directly involved in a future conflict prophesied by Ezekiel in the thirty-eight and thirty-ninth chapters of the Book of Ezekiel. The chapters detail how this confederacy of Nations will attempt to destroy Israel but God himself will defend her.
