Syrian foreign policy change towards Turkiye in the post-Assad era

Abstract

This research explores the change in Syrian foreign policy towards Türkiye before and after the fall of the Assad regime in December 2024 after six decades under the Ba'ath Party. Syria's foreign policy was characterized by consistent alliances and an orientation centered on their national interest with regime survival and the resistance to Western influence. The fall of Bashar al-Assad is one of the most notable developments in Syria following by changing their national interests and resulted in gradual improvement of Syria-Türkiye relations. This thesis argues that Syria's Assad government preserved their foreign policy particularly in maintaining security-driven relations with Russia and having a distance with Türkiye. After Assad collapsed, Syria showed a transformation in its foreign policy through efforts at strategic alliances with their neighborhoods leading to a transformation of Syria's political, economic, and security relations towards Türkiye. Using the methodology of qualitative research with descriptive analysis, this research examines the major shifts in Syrian foreign policy in a new transitional government towards Türkiye. This thesis incorporates geospatial data, document analysis, and field observation as a source to provide contextual understanding of the post-Assad condition of Syria and emerging patterns of interaction between Syria and Türkiye. The findings suggest that the national interest of the new transitional government under Ahmad Al-Sharaa in Syria transformed Syria foreign policy towards Türkiye linked by their geographic proximity, economic and security interdependence, and border security concerns. This research contributes to the emerging literature on post-Assad Syria and provides a more comprehensive explanation of changing dynamics of Syria-Türkiye relations in a period of political transition by providing a neorealist explanation.