Israel and Turkey have reached an agreement in principle aimed at preventing any unwanted incidents between both countries’ militaries operating in Syria, and established a hotline to avert such conflicts, according to media reports on Wednesday.
An Israeli official told the Israel Hayom daily that the deal was reached Wednesday, after over a month of talks mediated by Azerbaijan, a mutual ally of the two countries, which were confirmed by the Prime Minister’s Office last month.
A hotline will be used to avert clashes between Israel, which has troops in the south of the country, and Turkey, whose military is operating in the north of the country, two sources familiar with the issue told the Middle East Eye news site.
Russia and Israel also established a hotline in 2015 to avoid clashes between their air forces, as Israel worked to prevent Iran from gaining a military foothold in the country, and Russia provided military support for the Bashar al-Assad regime amid the Syrian civil war.
A source familiar with the talks told the site that Jerusalem was generally at ease with Ankara’s deployment of its forces in Syria, with the main issue over where Turkey would deploy its air defenses and radars, which could scan for Israeli aerial activities. The negotiations are now “focusing on the so-called Palmyra line” — an area where Turkey sought to take over airbases.
Reuters reported last month that Turkish military teams reviewed at least three air bases in Syria near Palmyra where they might deploy forces as part of a planned joint defense pact, before Israel hit the sites with airstrikes, rendering them unusable.
“Those bases represent a gray zone; the Israelis could be amenable to Turkish deployments north of that area,” the source said.
Turkish military officials said they had nothing to announce on the matter.
Israel has accused Turkey of trying to turn Syria into a Turkish protectorate, and Ankara has slammed Israeli military activity in the country following the fall of Assad.
Following the fall of Assad, Israel has also carried out a campaign to destroy Syrian military capabilities so that they cannot threaten Israel. It fears that if Turkey establishes a military presence in Syria, it could hamper the Israeli Air Force’s freedom of action in the region.
Israel also moved troops into the Syrian side of the two countries’ demilitarized buffer zone, citing fear that it would fall into the wrong hands.
Meanwhile, Israel has been holding secret talks with Syrian officials, including on the possibility of the new regime joining the Abraham Accords, according to a report released last week, a day after US President Donald Trump invited new Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa to join the accords and normalize ties with Israel.
Turkey is a key backer of the Islamist-led coalition that toppled Assad late last year after almost 14 years of civil war. Israel is wary of the Islamist presence on its border and has lobbied the United States to curb Turkey’s growing influence in the country.
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is an avowed supporter of Hamas and one of the leading critics of Israel on the world stage, and his country has frequently praised the Iran-backed Palestinian terror group’s October 7, 2023, attack that started the ongoing war, when thousands of terrorists invaded southern Israel from the Gaza Strip, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages.
Less than a month after the October 7 attack, Erdogan, whose government had only recently restored full diplomatic ties with Israel, massively stepped up his criticism of the Jewish state. In late October 2023, he asserted that Hamas was not a terrorist organization but a liberation group of “mujahideen” fighting for its lands and people, and said in an address to a mass pro-Palestinian rally in Istanbul that his country was making preparations to proclaim Israel a “war criminal” for its actions in Gaza.
Israel announced it would pull its diplomats out of Turkey in response to Erdogan’s inflammatory statements.
Turkey also hosts several Hamas officials and has repeatedly invited the group’s leaders the the country for meetings.
Israel was a long-time regional ally of Turkey before Erdogan came to power, but ties imploded after a 2010 Israeli commando raid on the Gaza-bound Mavi Marmara ship, part of a blockade-busting flotilla, that left 10 Turkish activists dead who attacked IDF soldiers aboard the ship.
Netanyahu and Erdogan repeatedly aimed brickbats at each other in the ensuing years. Erdogan has repeatedly compared Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler and Israel to Nazi Germany.
Lazar Berman, Nava Freiberg, and Reuters contributed to this report.