The traditionally tense relations between Turkey and Syria had been due to disputes including the self annexation of the Hatay Province to Turkey in 1939, water disputes resulting from the Southeastern Anatolia Project, and Syria's support for the Kurdistan Workers' Party (abbreviated as PKK) and the now-dissolved Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (abbreviated as ASALA) which has been recognised as a terrorist organisation by NATO, the EU, and many other countries.

[1] A serious incident occurred with the Syrian downing of a Turkish military training flight in June 2012, resulting in Turkey calling an emergency meeting of NATO.

[1] Turkey is a full member of the Union for the Mediterranean and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) while Syria's membership was suspended due to the civil war.

In 1938, the Turkish Army went into the former Syrian Mediterranean province with French approval and expelled most of its Alawite and Christian Arab and Armenian inhabitants.

Water disputes have been a major source of conflict as Turkey has constructed several dams on the Euphrates and Tigris rivers as part of the Southeastern Anatolia Project- GAP to develop the region.

[4] The project GAP was aimed at reducing the harsh living conditions of the Southeastern provinces of Turkey by building 19 dams on the rivers of Euphrates and Tigris.

[9] The two countries came to the brink of war when Turkey threatened military action if Syria continued to shelter Abdullah Öcalan in Damascus, his long-time safe haven.

Relations have improved since October 1998, when Öcalan was expelled by Damascus and Syria pledged to stop harbouring the PKK militants and the 1999 signing of the Adana agreement, following his subsequent capture in Kenya, envisaged security cooperation between the two countries.

Islamists look at the secular state which buried the caliphate and think 'betrayal'; and Arab nationalists still haven't forgotten that Turks are their former colonial rulers."

"[4] The Turkish Parliament's refusal to cooperate militarily with the 2003 invasion of Iraq was a turning point in Syrian-Turkish bilateral relations as Syria's perceptions of Turkey as incapable of acting independently were altered.

"[19] On 3 April 2007, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Syrian President Bashar Al Assad attended the opening ceremony of the Aleppo International Stadium.

[21] In 2008, Turkey was, as a sign of mutual trust in Damascus and Jerusalem, invited to play the role of facilitator between Syria and Israel to solve their dispute over control over the Golan Heights, but these talks were abandoned after four rounds, which included a visit by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdoğan at Bodrum in August,[22] following the deterioration in Turkey-Israel relations over the 2008–2009 Israel-Gaza conflict,[23][24][25] On 26 April 2009, the two states announced an "unprecedented" three-day military manoeuvre involving ground forces along their mutual border in what was described as "a step further in their ever-expanding cooperation."

According to Turkish military sources, "The aim of the exercise is to boost friendship, cooperation, and confidence between the two countries land forces, and to increase the ability of border troops to train and work together."

A senior Turkish diplomat confirmed that, "The main topic on the agenda and the goal of the visit is the maintenance of momentum that has built up in bilateral relations within the last decade.

[27] Shortly before the visit new Syrian Ambassador to Turkey, Nidal Qablan confirmed that Syria was ready to restart the Turkish mediated peace negotiations with Israel[28] and Gül supported the call, following his meeting with Assad, stating that, "We have heard Syria say it is ready to resume the peace talks from the point where they stopped with the previous [Israeli] government.

On 9 August 2011, the BBC and other news sites reported that Turkey sent its foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoğlu, to Syria to give the government a "tough" message.

According to a driver, when told that the passengers were Turks, "Syrian soldiers emerged from behind sandbags and cursed Recep Tayyip Erdoğan... Then they suddenly opened fire at the bus.

However, Turkish president Abdullah Gül and other spokesmen have not confirmed this and emphasized that brief incursions into neighboring airspace by high-speed jets are routine occurrences.

[47] On the same day, the airline chief said in an interview that Turkey violated the Chicago Convention on International Civil Aviation[citation needed] Syria subsequently banned Turkish civilian flights from its airspace.

In recordings released in 2014, Turkish intelligence chief Hakan Fidan suggests that rockets should be fired from Syria into Turkey to justify military action in retaliation.

[64] In early December 2022, Reuters reported that the Syrian leadership was still resisting Russia's efforts to convene a summit between Assad and Erdoğan.

[65] In a major breakthrough, on 28 December, both countries' defense ministers and intelligence chiefs met in Moscow, and the talks were described as fruitful.

[66][67][68] In late March 2023, Turkey had taken the path of easing economic sanctions against Syria, as Erdogan is seeking a "bilateral normalization effort" with his Syrian counterpart Bashar Al-Assad, according to Le Monde.

Earlier, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu met in Ankara to seek a solution to the separatist-controlled north of Syria, an issue long at heart for Turkey.

[70] Following the end of Assad's regime in early December 2024, Turkish intelligence chief Ibrahim Kalin met with Ahmed al-Sharaa, leader of the Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham, and caretaker prime minister Mohammad al-Bashir in Damascus.

[72] A week later, on 22 December, Turkey's Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan held a meeting with Ahmed al-Sharaa in Damascus to support the transitional government.