Erdogan: 'There is now a new reality in Syria'

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the president of Turkey, has stressed the need to maintain Syria's territorial integrity.

Speaking this afternoon in Gaziantep, a southern Turkish city that hosts thousands of Syrian refugees and has acted as a base for aid workers operating in Syria, Erdogan said: "There is now a new reality in Syria, politically and diplomatically."

"Syria belongs to Syrians with all its ethnic, sectarian and religious elements," he said in a speech.

"The people of Syria are the ones who will decide the future of their own country."

Turkey backs several rebel groups in the Syrian National Army coalition, but denies helping the current rebel offensive.

A senior Turkish security source told MEE last week that Ankara actually tried to prevent the offensive to avoid further escalating tensions in the region, especially given Israel's wars on Gaza and Lebanon.

However, efforts to use channels established by a 2019 de-escalation agreement to halt Russian and Syrian government air strikes targeting residential areas of rebel-held Idlib province had not yielded results.

“In response to these attacks, Syrian opposition groups launched a limited operation towards Aleppo, targeting the areas from which the attacks originated,” the source said.

“What was initially planned as a limited operation expanded as regime forces began fleeing their positions.”