By Bosphorus News Geopolitics Desk
Türkiye's ambassador to Damascus, Nuh Yilmaz, says the security problems that once defined the Turkish-Syrian border are gone. He credits the shift to Syria's new administration, in an interview with Al Jazeera's Syria Now aired August 13 and 14.
Yilmaz called relations between the two countries "very excellent." The Turkish embassy in Damascus, he said, now carries more staff than any other Turkish mission abroad.
Border Security
He dated the change to December 8, 2024, when the previous Syrian government fell. Four problems had troubled the frontier for years: trafficking in people, the drug trade, uncontrolled migration, and terrorism. All four ended, in his telling, once Damascus changed hands, echoing President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's own line that Syria's security is Türkiye's security.
On the Syrian Democratic Forces, Yilmaz was direct: Ankara wants the group dissolved entirely as a terrorist organization. Türkiye is tracking the integration process underway inside the Syrian state and backs it, though he pointed to President Ahmed al-Sharaa's own description of that process as slow.
A $10 Billion Trade Target
Current trade between the two countries amounts to nothing against where both sides want it to go, Yilmaz said. He put the medium-term target at $10 billion, through a free trade agreement and joint industrial zones already under discussion, and called even that figure a placeholder likely to be overtaken.
The obstacles sit in Syria's legal and financial structures, in laws still on the books from the Assad era, and in sanctions, most of them lifted except Syria's designation as a state sponsor of terrorism. Türkiye's textile sector, which has lost ground internationally, is one he named as a target for Syrian investment.
Crossings and the Idlib Dry Port
The main snag at the border crossings had been PKK control of some of them, prompting Türkiye to shut them down. Yilmaz expects them to reopen in stages as Syria clears itself of terrorism, with activation likely inside three months.
A dry port project in Idlib, run by Türkiye's Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges (TOBB), is meant to cut the waits and customs friction slowing trade at the border.
Schools and Visas
Turkish and Syrian education officials have agreed to open Turkish "Maarif" schools in Syria, starting in Damascus and its outskirts, with room to expand to other cities later. Schools already running in northern Syria stay in place under Syrian law.
Türkiye's foreign and interior ministries are working on easier visa terms for Syrians heading home and those wanting to visit Türkiye, pending presidential sign-off on further steps.
The Erdogan Visit
Yilmaz disclosed, for the first time, that Erdogan had been due in Damascus around April 21, before the outbreak of regional war and the closure of Syrian airspace scrapped the trip. The date had never been locked in from Ankara's side to begin with.
He described Erdogan as someone with a deep pull toward Damascus: "There are very few things in the world that could please him more" than praying at the Umayyad Mosque. The visit will happen, Yilmaz said, though the timing isn't his to set. He hopes it lands before the year is out.
Sources: Al Jazeera, Bosphorus News review and reporting.