In the past month, Turkey has moved to normalize relations with Israel, Russia, and now — according to comments made by Turkey's new prime minister, as well as
a Foreign Policy reportpublished Wednesday — with the Assad regime in Syria.
"It is our greatest and irrevocable goal: Developing good relations with Syria and Iraq, and all our neighbors that surround the Mediterranean and the Black Sea," Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said on Wednesday.
"We normalized relations with Russia and Israel," Yildirim said. "I'm sure we will normalize our relations with Syria as well. For the fight against terrorism to succeed, stability needs to return to Syria and Iraq."
A new report published the same day in Foreign Policy claims that two members of Turkey's Homeland Party — a nationalist movement "with an anti-Western and anti-American platform" — have been meeting with Syrian government officials over the past year to discuss "how to prepare the ground for Turkey and Syria to resume diplomatic relations and political cooperation."
They say they have been relaying the outcomes of these meetings to high-ranking Turkish military and Foreign Ministry officials.