Turkey welcomes Syrian offensive in Aleppo against Kurdish fighters

09.01.2026

By Turkish minute

Source:https://www.turkishminute.com/2026/01/09/turkey-welcomes-syrian-offensive-in-aleppo-against-kurdish-fighters/

Turkey said on Friday that it welcomed the Syrian army’s operation in Aleppo as a ceasefire announced overnight failed to produce the withdrawal of Kurdish fighters from the city’s Kurdish-majority neighborhoods after days of clashes that displaced more than 140,000 people.

Syrian authorities declared a ceasefire effective 3 a.m. local time on Friday in the neighborhoods of Sheikh Maqsoud, Ashrafiyah and Bani Zaid and gave armed groups six hours to leave under escort with limited weapons.

No fighters had withdrawn by the deadline, and local Kurdish groups rejected the demand as a call to surrender.

At least 21 people have reportedly been killed since the fighting began Tuesday, with 12 deaths in Kurdish-majority areas and nine in government-held areas.

Speaking after a Turkey-Indonesia joint meeting of foreign and defense ministers in Ankara, Turkey’s defense minister, Yaşar Güler, said Ankara welcomed the Syrian army’s operation.

“We welcome this operation, which targets all terrorist groups,” Güler said.

He added that Turkey views Syria’s security as its own security and supports Syria’s fight against what he called terrorist organizations.

Speaking after the same event, Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said Turkey expects the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to comply with what he called the March 10 agreement and said Turkey backs Syria’s fight against terrorism “to the end,” according to T24.

The SDF is a US-backed, Kurdish-led force that controls large parts of northeastern Syria and was the main US partner in the territorial defeat of the Islamic State group in Syria in 2019.

Turkey treats the SDF as a security threat because Ankara says it is dominated by the People’s Protection Units (YPG), a Kurdish group Turkey links to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has fought the Turkish state for decades and is designated a terrorist organization by Turkey and its Western allies.

The fighting erupted on January 6 in Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafiyah, neighborhoods that have remained under Kurdish control inside Aleppo despite earlier understandings aimed at reducing tensions.

The United States welcomed the ceasefire and is pressing to extend it while pushing for integration talks between the SDF and Damascus, but progress has been limited since a March 2025 framework agreement.

In a separate statement Friday attributed to unnamed “security sources,” T24 reported that Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization (MIT), acting on President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s instructions, has been holding talks with the Syrian government and the United States to seek a peaceful solution and to limit spillover risks including possible migration toward the Turkish border.

The same security source account said Syrian forces had taken control of most of Ashrafiyah and Bani Zaid and that operations in Sheikh Maqsoud were continuing, a claim that could not be independently verified.

With reporting by Agence France-Presse.