Egypt Daily News – A Turkish diplomatic source said on Saturday that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan did not talk about annexing Syrian cities to Türkiye.
The source confirmed in exclusive statements to the Russian “Sputnik” agency that “the head of state’s speech was devoted to the fact that Ankara cannot sever relations with the residents of Syrian cities simply because of the location of these areas outside the borders of Turkey.”
Earlier, media outlets reported that Erdogan announced his intention to annex several Syrian cities to Turkey and to reconsider the borders between the two countries that appeared after World War II, according to Sputnik.
Erdogan had confirmed in his speech during the eighth conference of the Justice and Development Party in the Turkish state of Sakarya, that “the Syrian people overthrew the Assad regime and that Ankara will cleanse all other regions of terrorist organizations.”
The Turkish President stated that his country is counting on the interim government in Syria to take “the right steps” and not pose a threat to its neighbors, stressing that Ankara will support this process.
He pointed out that “the Syrian people have reached the stage of determining their future after a humanitarian crisis that lasted 13 years.”
On Saturday, December 14, Türkiye raised its flag above its embassy headquarters in the Syrian capital, Damascus, after its reopening.
The Turkish Anatolia Agency reported that “the Turkish flag was raised over the building of the Ankara embassy in Damascus after a 12-year hiatus.”
On Thursday, the Turkish Foreign Ministry announced, in a statement, that it had decided to appoint Turkey’s ambassador to Mauritania, Burhan Koroglu, as charge d’affaires of Ankara’s embassy in Damascus temporarily.
