Türkiye’s stance for Syrians above all provocations: Ministry
ANKARA
Türkiye's efforts and principled stance for the well-being of the Syrian people are above all provocations, a Foreign Ministry statement said late on July 1 amid incidents in several Turkish cities and northern Syria.
Ankara has condemned anti-Türkiye demonstrations in northern Syria, asserting that the recent incidents in the central city of Kayseri were "exploited for provocations."
Protests in Syria's Ankara-controlled northwest followed a rampage against Syrian businesses and properties in central Türkiye where a Syrian man had been accused of harassing a child a day earlier.
Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said on X that the child involved was also a Syrian girl related to her alleged harasser.
An AFP correspondent in the northern city of Azaz said dozens protested there, with some raising the flag of the Syrian opposition.
Meanwhile, Justice Minister Yılmaz Tunç announced a probe into the incidents in northern Syria, citing charges of "insulting the signs of the sovereignty of the state."
Turkish police detained over 470 individuals following the rampage in Kayseri.
"These acts against the Turkish Republic will not be allowed in any way," local media quoted security sources as saying.
The Interior Ministry and police were coordinating and monitoring events both inside Türkiye and in northern Syria, "taking the necessary interventions," the sources added.
For his part, Defense Minister Yaşar Güler said he was following "the negative perception and increasing tensions that have been tried to be created recently" regarding Syrian refugees.
"The attempts of some elements operating against Türkiye to disrupt public order will be defeated thanks to the devoted efforts of all units of our state," Güler said in a videoconference session attended by military officials.
The interim government in Syria also condemned the acts against the Turkish flag in a written statement.
"Our people living in the liberated areas not to heed provocative calls aiming to undermine the existing alliance between the Turkish and Syrian people and to attack properties and institutions built with the sacrifices of the Turkish army and the Syrian National Army," it said.
Last week, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan pointed to a possible meeting with his Syrian counterpart, Bashar al-Assad, saying it was "not impossible."
