Having weathered his toughest election test yet, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been stepping up diplomacy in the Middle East. His focus is on luring much-needed investment from the Gulf and mending fences with Egypt and Syria.
The Syrian file was high on the agenda of bilateral talks when Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi visited Ankara on Tuesday, a day after he met with Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad and Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad in Damascus. Ankara’s Russian-mediated bid for normalization with Damascus meshes with Jordan’s efforts to get rid of its own refugee burden, combat drug trafficking from Syria and enhance border security.
Hoping to ease Western objections to reconciliation with the Syrian government, Jordan has promoted fence-mending on the basis of reciprocity. Damascus would be expected to take steps to facilitate the return of the refugees and tackle cross-border smuggling. In May, Jordan hosted a meeting of the Arab League's contact group that paved the way for Syria’s return to the Arab League. Before his arrival in Damascus, Safadi reminded the Syrian government of its commitments agreed to in the Amman Declaration. Following the bilateral talks, both he and Mekdad stressed that the provision of critical infrastructure and guaranteeing their basic needs is the key to speeding up the return of refugees.
In its fledgling dialogue with Syria as part of four-way talks involving Russia and Iran, Turkey has similarly argued that facilitating refugee returns should be the primary issue, while Damascus has urged Ankara to withdraw its troops from Syria and stop supporting “terrorist” groups as preconditions for normalization.
