Turkish authorities intend to provide Syria with military equipment, including armored vehicles, drones, artillery, rockets, and air-defense systems, in the coming weeks, Bloomberg reported on Friday, October 17, citing Turkish officials who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter.
The officials said the equipment would be deployed in northern Syria to avoid any friction with Israel in the southwest, adding that the step is part of broader understandings with Syria’s transitional president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, to support his efforts to rebuild the Syrian army after the recent war with Israel devastated much of its arsenal.
Turkey’s presidency declined to comment, and Syria’s Ministry of Information did not respond to Bloomberg’s request for comment, according to the report.
Bloomberg said Ankara’s shipments are meant to bolster President al-Sharaa and help unify the country under his leadership. Ankara also fears the growing influence of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in northeastern Syria, which includes the People’s Protection Units (YPG) that Turkey considers an extension of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
The move comes as Ankara and Damascus discuss expanding a security arrangement that has been in place for nearly three decades, allowing Turkey to target Kurdish fighters along the Syrian border.
According to Bloomberg, the two sides have discussed widening the depth of Turkish operations inside Syrian territory to 30 kilometers from the current 5-kilometer limit.
The agency referenced the Adana Security Agreement, signed on October 20, 1998, in the Turkish city of Adana, following a major political-military crisis in which Ankara accused Damascus of sheltering PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan and supporting the group’s attacks on Turkey. Under the threat of Turkish military intervention at the time, Syria agreed to sign the agreement, which included a set of mutual security commitments.
Key clauses of the Adana Agreement
Syria undertakes to prevent any PKK activity on its soil or the launch of operations against Turkey from within Syria. Expulsion of Abdullah Öcalan from Syria and the closure of PKK camps and offices there. Granting Turkey the right to pursue PKK members up to 5 kilometers inside Syrian territory if Damascus is unable to take the necessary steps to stop their activity.Bloomberg said Turkish officials are counting on al-Sharaa to counter Kurdish demands for broader autonomy in the border regions and to limit the SDF’s access to oil and gas revenues over fears these could finance the PKK.
On Thursday, October 16, SDF commander-in-chief Mazloum Abdi said the SDF had reached a preliminary agreement “in principle” with the Syrian government on a mechanism for integration as a cohesive formation within the Syrian Arab Army.
Abdi noted that the SDF includes tens of thousands of fighters as well as thousands of Internal Security personnel, making individual enlistment, common for smaller factions, unworkable. Instead, the forces would join as larger military formations structured in line with Defense Ministry rules.
Speaking to the Associated Press, Abdi said both sides formed a committee that will work with the Syrian defense minister and other military officials to define “appropriate mechanisms.” He expected SDF members and commanders who joined the national army to assume senior roles within the Defense Ministry and the army’s leadership.
Abdi recently met President Ahmed al-Sharaa and other senior officials, including the foreign and defense ministers, where they reached a “preliminary agreement” on the SDF’s integration into the army. He argued that implementing the deal would also help resolve many other problems across Syria emerging from a 14-year civil war that has killed nearly half a million people.
Turkey says it “won’t leave the Syrian president and his friends alone”
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said his country continues contact with Syria “in all fields and at every level,” stressing Ankara’s determination to “strengthen coordination and close cooperation to protect the gains of Syria and the region.”
Speaking to reporters after returning from the Sharm el-Sheikh Peace Summit on October 14, Erdoğan said Turkey “will not leave Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa and his friends alone.” He added that communication between the two sides is ongoing and that Ankara repeatedly warns the SDF against “wrong paths,” urging it to “support Syria’s unity and territorial integrity.”
“We hope they take a position consistent with the goal of a prosperous, unified future for Syria,” Erdoğan said, adding that integrating the SDF with the Syrian state as soon as possible would accelerate development steps. He praised what he described as “the Syrian administration’s approach to moving toward the future with a mindset inclusive of all ethnic and religious components,” calling it beneficial to both Syria and Turkey.
Turkish demands that the SDF disarm
Turkish Defense Minister Yaşar Güler on October 11 called on the PKK and its offshoots, particularly in Syria, to halt what he described as “terrorist activities.”
“The PKK and all of its affiliates must immediately cease all their terrorist activities,” Güler said, adding that “all its extensions operating under different names and in multiple geographies, especially in Syria, must lay down their arms immediately and unconditionally.” He asserted that Turkey would not allow what he called “terrorist organizations,” notably the PKK, YPG, and SDF, to take root in the region or operate under different names in neighboring countries.
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