Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani acknowledged on Wednesday that Turkish military officers had visited the airbase in Syria that Israel bombed this week, but denied that there were plans for a Turkish military deployment.

The visit by Turkish officers to the Abu Duhur airbase was nothing more than a facet of “ongoing military cooperation” between allies, al-Shaibani insisted in an interview with Axios.

His remarks were published by the news outlet hours after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asserted that Israel had warned Turkey against any military activity in Syria before launching the strikes on the airbase on Tuesday.

Israel said it targeted the airbase because Syria “was on the verge of breaching” an agreed-upon status quo in security matters “by permitting Turkish troops to deploy” there.

But al-Shaibani told Axios that “there was no Turkish military build-up at the base in any sense that would justify such an interpretation,” and said Damascus had told Jerusalem as much in the days before the attack.

“The base was, in fact, largely empty. It had not yet been fully rehabilitated or become fully operational, and the work there was still at the rehabilitation stage.”

“Therefore, linking the strike to a Turkish military presence at the base is not supported by the situation on the ground as it stood at the time,” al-Shaibani added.

He told Axios that the visit by Turkish military officers took place in the framework of “ongoing military cooperation in the areas of training and the exchange of expertise” as Damascus works to rebuild its international standing after more than a decade of civil war ended with the overthrow of the Assad regime in December 2024.

“Syria is currently working to rebuild its military and civilian institutions and develop their capabilities,” al-Shaibani said. “It therefore benefits from cooperation and training programs with a number of countries, not Turkey alone. Similar cooperation has taken place and continues with Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar and Russia.”

“Syria is a sovereign state, and it........

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