PNN – The Reuters news agency quoted two informed sources today and wrote that the armed opposition of the Syrian government informed the Turkish government about six months ago of a plan to launch a large-scale attack on the government forces and, according to them, had received Ankara’s tacit approval.
According to the report of Pakistan News Network, Reuters quoted “diplomats of one of the countries in the region and a member of the Syrian opposition” and wrote that the rebels could not advance their plans without prior information from Turkey.
This news agency added: Türkiye has deployed its forces in northwestern Syria and supports some rebels such as the “Syrian National Army”. However, Ankara considers the main member of the opposition coalition, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, a terrorist group.
The diplomat said that the plan of the rebels was the brainchild of the board and its leader Ahmad Hossein al-Shara, known as Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, who is considered a terrorist by the United States, Europe and Turkey due to his previous ties with al-Qaeda.
However, sources said the rebels sensed a shift in Ankara’s stance toward Damascus earlier this year after Assad rejected Erdogan’s repeated offers to end the military stalemate.
Read more:
The narrative of the fall: Why did Bashar al-Assad leave power?
A Syrian opposition source also said that after Ankara’s efforts to engage with Assad failed, the rebels showed Turkey the details of the plan.
Their message was: the old way has been dead for years, so try our way. You don’t have to take action, just don’t intervene.
Speaking in Doha, Qatar’s capital, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said yesterday that Erdogan’s efforts in recent months to reach out to Assad had failed and that Turkey “knew something was coming.”
However, Turkey’s Deputy Foreign Minister Noh Yilmaz said yesterday in Bahrain and at a conference on the Middle East that Ankara was not behind the attack, did not show satisfaction and was worried about instability.
In response to Reuters’ questions about Turkey’s awareness of the opposition’s combat preparations, a Turkish official said that Hayat Tahrir al-Sham “did not receive orders or guidance from us and does not coordinate its operations with us.”
The official said that “in this regard” it is not correct to say that the Aleppo operation was carried out with the approval or green light of Türkiye.
An American official, who asked not to be named, said that despite Washington’s awareness of Turkey’s general support for the rebels, it had not been informed of any tacit approval by the country for the attack on Aleppo.
According to Reuters, after the start of the opposition’s attack, the Syrian armed forces were unable to resist. An informed source in the Syrian government told Reuters that tank and planes had run out of fuel due to corruption and looting, and that the army’s morale had been severely weakened over the past two years.