Turkish Defense Minister Yasar Guler takes part in a NATO Defense Ministers’ meeting at the Alliance’s headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, Oct. 12, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Johanna Geron

Turkey is training and advising Syria’s armed forces and helping improve its defenses, and has no immediate plans for the withdrawal or relocation of its troops stationed there, Defense Minister Yasar Guler told Reuters.

Turkey has emerged as a key foreign ally of Syria’s new government since rebels – some of them backed for years by Ankara – ousted former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in December to end his family’s five-decade rule.

It has promised to help rebuild neighboring Syria and facilitate the return of millions of Syrian civil war refugees, and played a key role last month getting US and European sanctions on Syria lifted.

The newfound Turkish influence in Damascus has raised Israeli concerns and risked a standoff or worse in Syria between the regional powers.

In written answers to questions from Reuters, Guler said Turkey and Israel – which carried out its latest airstrikes on southern Syria late on Tuesday – are continuing de-confliction talks to avoid military accidents in the country.

Turkey‘s overall priority in Syria is preserving its territorial integrity and unity, and ridding it of terrorism, he said, adding Ankara was supporting Damascus in these efforts.

“We have started providing military training and consultancy services, while taking steps to increase Syria’s defense capacity,” Guler said, without elaborating on those steps.

Named to the post by President Tayyip Erdogan two years ago, Guler said it was too early to discuss possible withdrawal or relocation of the more than 20,000 Turkish troops in Syria.

Ankara controlled swathes of northern Syria and established dozens of bases there after several cross-border operations in recent years against Kurdish militants it deems terrorists.

This can “only be re-evaluated when Syria achieves peace and stability, when the threat of terrorism in the region is fully removed, when our border security is fully ensured, and when the honorable return of people who had to flee is done,” he said.

NATO member Turkey has accused Israel of undermining Syrian peace and rebuilding with its military operations there in recent months and, since late 2023, has also fiercely criticized Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.

But the two regional powers have been quietly working to establish a de-confliction mechanism in Syria.

Guler described the talks as “technical level meetings to establish a de-confliction mechanism to prevent unwanted events” or direct conflict, as well as “a communication and coordination structure.”

“Our efforts to form this line and make it fully operational continue. Yet it should not be forgotten that the de-confliction mechanism is not a normalization,” he told Reuters.

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A view of new buildings around the Israeli settlement Talmon B near the Palestinian town of Mazraa Al-Qibleyeh near Ramallah, in the West Bank, Nov. 20, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Mohammed Torokman

Norway‘s parliament on Wednesday rejected a proposal to have the country’s $1.9 trillion sovereign wealth fund, the world’s largest, divest from all companies with activities in the Palestinian territories.

The minority Labour government has for months been resisting pressure from anti-Israel campaigners to instruct the fund to divest from all firms with ties to the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and parliament had been expected to vote against.

“We have an established ethical regime for the fund,” Finance Minister Jens Stoltenberg told the chamber earlier in the day, during a debate on several aspects of the way the fund is run.

“We divest from the companies that contribute to Israel’s breach of international law, but we do not divest from all companies that are present on the ground.”

Lawmaker Ingrid Fiskaa from the small Socialist Left opposition party told the chamber: “Without Norwegian oil fund money, it would be more difficult for Israeli authorities to demolish the homes of Palestinian families.”

The United Nations’ special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese, wrote to Stoltenberg to alert him to what she called the “structural entanglement of Israeli corporations … in the machinery of the occupation both in the West Bank, including east Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, and the violence that sustains it.”

“International corporations benefiting from [the Norwegian fund‘s] investments are critical components of the infrastructure sustaining the economy of the occupation,” she wrote, in a letter dated May 20.

Stoltenberg replied that the government was “confident that the investments do not violate Norway‘s obligations under international law.”

He noted that the fund follows ethical guidelines set by parliament, and that compliance is monitored by a separate body.

That watchdog has over the past year recommended divestments from Israeli petrol station chain Paz and telecoms company Bezeq and is looking at more potential divestments in Israel.

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Britain’s Foreign Secretary David Lammy leaves Downing Street, following the results of the election, in London, Britain, July 5, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Toby Melville

i24 News – The United States has warned the UK and France not to unilaterally recognize a Palestinian state at a UN conference scheduled for June 17 in New York, the Middle East Eye reported Tuesday.

France and Saudi Arabia will co-host this conference on the two-state solution, with Paris reportedly preparing to unilaterally recognize Palestine. France is also pressuring London to follow this path, according to sources from the British Foreign Office.

French media reports indicate that French authorities believe they have the agreement of the British government. Meanwhile, Arab states are encouraging this move, measuring the success of the conference by the recognitions obtained.

This initiative deeply divides Western allies. If France and the UK were to carry out this recognition, they would become the first G7 nations to take this step, causing a “political earthquake” according to observers, given their historical ties with Israel. The Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer threatened last week to annex parts of the West Bank if this recognition took place, according to a report in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

In the United Kingdom, Foreign Secretary David Lammy publicly opposes unilateral recognition, stating that London would only recognize a Palestinian state when we know that it is going to happen and that it is in view.

However, pressure is mounting within the Labour Party. MP Uma Kumaran, member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, said that the government was elected on a platform that promised to recognize Palestine as a step towards a just and lasting peace. Chris Doyle, director of the Council for Arab-British Understanding, believes that there is no legitimate reason for the United States to interfere in a sovereign decision of recognition, while highlighting the unpredictability of US President Donald Trump on this issue.

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