Signs of Syrian media change of tone towards Türkiye

The recent approaches between Türkiye and Syria brought a shift in discourse and outlook between Syria and Türkiye  after years of estrangement.

The change of tone began in Türkiye at the end of last year, and was expressed by Turkish officials, starting with the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and ending with his foreign and defense ministers, which was also reflected in the Turkish media discourse towards Syria.

As for the Syrian side, the official comment on the tripartite meeting was limited to describing the meeting in one word, which is that it was positive, in an official statement issued by the Syrian Ministry of Defense.

Of course, all Syrian local media were keen to talk about it in a professional manner, without addition or omission, and without comment on the issue.

Recently, the Syrian media TV and Newspapers described the recent Syrian-Turkish officals meetings as “semi-official”.

In fact, there is still hesitation in terms of changing the tone drastically towards Türkiye.

However recent tone was obvious that the term of “Türkiye” has started to be used instead of the term “Turkish regime” with the phrase “Turkish government”.

The Syrian Media calls the Turkish President “Erdogan” the head of the Turkish regime, as it used to do during the past several years.

Rather, it now calls him “the head of the Turkish government”.

The change of discourse in the Syrian newspapers regarding the Syria Democratic Forces (SDF).

Although the official Syrian media continued to describe the SDF as a “Militia” and attached several adjectives to it at times, such as “Separatism” or “Agents” and so on.

Now it started to spot change, by using the term of “PKK Militia”, which is what the official Turkish media uses to refer to the “PKK” the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, which Ankara classifies as a terrorist organization.

Ankara says that SDF is one of the wings of PKK that is extending to Syria.

At the same time, the Syrian official SANA news agency, during its news transmission, as they posted the news of the contact between the Russian president Vladimir Putin and the Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, maintained to call the Turkish President by using the term of  “Head of the Turkish regime”, and the official Syrian TV also continued to use the term of “Turkish occupation”, when talking about the Turkish military presence in the northern Syrian and its practice of aggression on Syrian territories.

The official Syrian media doesn’t appear to be in a hurry to change its rhetoric and vocabulary towards Türkiye before a tangible turning point in the relations between the two countries, especially since the official narrative says that relations with the Republic of Türkiye and the Syrian Arab Republic, won’t improve before a complete withdrawal of the Turkish army from Syrian territories.

On the other hand, and as an example, referring to the shift in tone or perhaps role-playing in dealing with Syrian-Turkish realtions, a Syrian private Al Watan newspaper seemed hasty to change its vocabulary, as it went too far in that, bearing in mind that its stand doesn’t express the official position of the Syrian Government, since its considered as private newspapers.

Although the recent turns in position carries implicit messages between the lines without the need for the Syrian authorities to adopt it directly.