UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported that four people were killed in Afrin and Jarablus in northern Aleppo countryside, "and more than 20 others were injured with varying degrees of severity during the clashes and random shooting."
Hundreds of protesters demonstrated throughout rebel-held northwest Syria in light of the recent rampage of Syrian homes and businesses in Turkey’s central Kayseri province, where a Syrian man was accused of sexually harassing a child.
People in the towns and cities of al-Bab, al-Rai, Azaz, and Afrin flooded the streets, blocked the roads and invaded Turkish institutions in the cities, according to North Press Agency (NPA), a pro-Kurdish media outlet covering Syria.
NPA reported that the protesters attacked trucks and vehicles with Turkish license plates and brought down the Turkish flags from the buildings across the province.
Footage on social media shows demonstrators tearing and stepping on a Turkish flag, while another video purportedly shows a Turkish soldier being forced to kiss the flag of the Syrian opposition. Another video shows men in military uniform bringing down the Turkish flag.
Additionally, AFP reported that armed gunmen opened fire at Turkish trucks in al-Bab.
إنزال العلم التركي في #الغندورة بريف #عفرين pic.twitter.com/q3AExDfZ9M
— المرصد السوري لحقوق الإنسان (@syriahr) July 1, 2024
The Turkey-backed Syrian opposition released a statement calling on protesters “to practice restraint and do not attack Turkish institutions and checkpoints,” while lauding an earlier statement by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan regarding the anti-Syrian riots in Turkey.
“One of the causes of the unfortunate events caused by a small group in Kayseri yesterday is the opposition's toxic rhetoric. Regardless of who they are, it is unacceptable to burn people's homes, commit vandalism and set the streets on fire,” Erdogan said on Monday during a party meeting in Ankara.
The recent escalations come amid efforts for rapprochement between Ankara and the Syrian government in Damascus.
Erdogan on Friday renewed his willingness to normalize relations with his Syrian counterpart Bashar al-Assad, who have severed ties since the beginning of the Syrian civil war.
“There is no reason not to establish” relations with Syria, Erdogan told reporters in Istanbul.
Assad received Alexander Lavrentiev, Russian President Vladimir Putin's special envoy for Syria, in Damascus on Wednesday and expressed his “openness to all initiatives related to the relationship between Syria and Turkey, which are based on the sovereignty of the Syrian state over its entire territory,” according to a statement from Damascus.
Erdogan’s comment marks a significant U-turn in his policy against Assad’s regime. When the war erupted in Syria, Erdogan, then prime minister of Turkey, slammed Assad for committing violence against his own people. Erdogan demanded the removal of the Syrian president from power labeling him a “terrorist.”
Through the conflict in Syria, Turkey has supported rebel forces, including those with links to al-Qaeda and other extremist groups. Turkey has also launched repeated incursions into Syrian territory, most notably against Kurdish forces in the northern city of Afrin in 2018.
Syrians rose up against the Assad regime in March 2011, leading to a full-scale civil war that has claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people and has left millions more in need of dire humanitarian assistance.
