Jordan and Turkey denounce Israeli intervention in Syria during Ankara meeting
Jordan and Turkey on Monday denounced Israel's intervention in Syria as destabilising to the country, amid regional changes caused by the fall of Bashar Al Assad's regime last year.
Since Hayat Tahrir Al Sham (HTS) took power in Damascus, Ankara has emerged as the main non-Arab power with influence on the new authorities. However, its position has been checked by Israel, as well as the continued presence of US troops in Syria.
Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Al Safadi said "Israel's aggression is an attempt to saw strife in Syria". Adding that "Israel has no right to attack Syrian territory. It will not bring Syria anything except instability and destruction".
Mr Al Safadi was speaking after a meeting in Ankara with his counterparts Hakan Fidan of Turkey and Asaad Al Shibani of Syria. "The Israeli expansion is destabilising to the security of Syria and threatens its future," Mr Fidan said.
Mr Al Shibani said that Syria has been subjected to "systematic bombing by Israel" and that countries in the region have been putting pressure on it to stop.
Over the last four months, Israel has expanded a buffer zone in the Golan Heights, south-west of Damascus, and bombed military and militia installations, particularly in areas in southern Syria, near Jordan. In April, after a few weeks of lull, it bombed targets in Damascus near the presidential palace, in response to attacks by pro-HTS militias on members of the Syrian Druze community. The Druze, an offshoot of Islam, are also present in Israel, Lebanon and Jordan.
HTS, a religious group formerly linked with Al Qaeda, was allied with Turkey before it launched an offensive that ended five decades of Assad family rule on December 8. Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other Arab countries have also supported the new authorities, having initiated a rapprochement that had ended hostilities with Mr Al Assad in the last three years of his rule.
A Western diplomat in Amman said that Jordan and other Arab countries, particularly Saudi Arabia, are in broad agreement with Turkey on the need to end Syria's fragmentation.
This is despite a US-backed Kurdish militia still being in control of large areas of eastern Syria and international concern over the fate of the country's minorities, who make up around a quarter of Syria's population. Pro-government forces carried out two mass killings against Alawites and Druze communities in the past two months, raising international condemnation and concern for minorities in the country.
"A divided Syria suits Israel more," the diplomat said, pointing out Israeli attempts to appeal as a protector to Syrian minorities.
Earlier on Monday, the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), a Turkish Marxist-Leninist group with a presence in Syria, said it will dissolve itself after decades of fighting Turkey. The decision could undermine the Syrian Democratic Forces, the main Kurdish militia in Syria, which was partly built around the PKKs fighting expertise.
In March, a security meeting in Jordan of Syria's neighbours called for the lifting of mainly Western sanctions on Syria and reconciliation from the civil war. The country's ethnic and religious minorities have been generally wary of an eventual imposition of Islamist rule under the new HTS order.
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