Assad's fall in Syria turned Turkey and Saudi Arabia from rivals to partners. Will it last?

Beirut | Sunni regional powerhouses Turkey and Saudi Arabia have had a complicated and often contentious relationship over the years. But their ties warmed significantly after Bashar Assad was toppled in neighbouring Syria in a lightning rebel offensive in December.

Since then, Turkey and Saudi Arabia have worked to stabilise the new government in Damascus and usher Syria back into the international fold.

It was no surprise then that the first trips abroad that Syria's insurgent-leader-turned-President Ahmad al-Sharaa made were to the kingdom's capital of Riyadh and Ankara, Turkey's capital.

That new Turkey-Saudi amiability was on display during US President Donald Trump's visit to the Middle East earlier this month, when he held a surprise meeting with al-Sharaa in Riyadh. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was in the room, while Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan joined the meeting by phone.

When Trump announced he was lifting sanctions imposed on Syria, he credited both the crown prince and Erdogan with persuading him to make the move.

Roots of a rocky relationship

There have been "both regional and ideological reasons" for the Turkey-Saudi rivalry in the past, according to Sinem Cengiz, a Turkish researcher at Qatar University's Gulf Studies Center.

Both countries enjoy the status of so-called "middle powers" — states that are influential globally but lack the clout of great powers — which has "fueled competition for regional dominance," she said.

The two also have different approaches to political Islam. Turkey has backed the Muslim Brotherhood, a pan-Arab Islamist movement that Saudi Arabia considers a terror organisation, as do several other Middle East countries.

After the 2011 Arab Spring swept across the region, Turkey openly supported the popular uprisings while the kingdom remained circumspect. However, both Ankara and Riyadh backed anti-Assad factions in Syria's 13-year civil war.

When Saudi Arabia and Qatar, another wealthy Gulf Arab state, had a diplomatic blowup in 2017, Turkey sided with Qatar.

The lowest point in relations came in 2018 when a Saudi hit squad killed Jamal Khashoggi — a Saudi citizen and US resident who wrote critically about the Saudi government for The Washington Post — at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul.

Turkish officials — who had access to audio recordings from inside the consulate — alleged that Khashoggi was killed in a premeditated operation by Saudi agents and dismembered with a bone saw. Prince Mohammed acknowledged the killing came under his watch but denied he ordered it, though US intelligence agencies believe that he did.

How did Assad's fall improve relations? Analysts say Assad's fall and the new reality in Syria intensified a thaw that was already underway between the two major US allies.

Hesham Alghannam, a Saudi political scientist and nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Middle East Center think tank, says it was an impetus that “significantly transformed Turkey-Saudi relations." Their interests aligned in a post-Assad Syria, so the two shifted "from rivalry to pragmatic cooperation," Alghannam said.

Ankara and Riyadh shared concerns about Iran's outsized influence in Syria under Assad — which disappeared with Assad's ouster — and the two now want to ensure Tehran' doesn't stage a comeback, he added.

They also had their own security concerns in Syria — Turkey because of its long unstable border with Syria and Turkish insurgent Kurdish groups that have sought safe havens with Syrian Kurds.

For its part, the kingdom has worried about the smuggling of the highly addictive Captagon in the region, an amphetamine-like stimulant that had been a main source of revenue for Assad.

"Their mutual need to counter Iran, manage Syria's instability, and shape a Sunni-led government (post-Assad) has fostered a partnership," Alghannam said.

Riyadh and Ankara have also recently established a united front to counterbalance Israel, which has been suspicious of al-Sharaa, once a leader of a formerly al-Qaida-linked militant group.

Since Assad's fall, Israel has launched airstrikes, seized a UN-patrolled buffer zone inside Syria and threatened to invade to protect the Druze religious minority after Druze factions clashed with the new Syrian security forces under al-Sharaa.

Joint Saudi-Turkey lobbying helped persuade Trump despite opposition in Israel — Washington's strongest ally in the region — to lift the US sanctions on Syria, "in the interest of avoiding any new destabilisation,” Cengiz said.

Today, Saudi Arabia and Turkey believe that like Iran did in the past, “Israel is playing a similarly disruptive role in Syria," she added.

Will the cooperation last?

With the lifting of Western sanctions paving the way for lucrative reconstruction deals and other investments in the new Syria, analysts say the Riyadh-Ankara alignment is likely to continue.

Cengiz said that neither Riyadh nor Ankara can dominate in Syria, so “to maximise their respective interests, both Turkey and Saudi Arabia will need to continue finding ways to work together for a win-win' outcome." Alghannam noted other signs of warming relations, including the revival earlier this month of the long-dormant Saudi-Turkish Coordination Council, a body charged with promoting cooperation across political, military, intelligence and economic sectors.

There will be arms sales, he said, pointing to Saudi interests in Turkish drones, as well as "joint reconstruction efforts in Syria." While their rivalry could still resurface, "the trend toward Turkey-Saudi cooperation is likely to persist," he concluded.

Salem El Yami, a former Saudi foreign ministry official and political analyst, said Syria's new leaders will have "a significant role to play" in balancing ties with allies rather than playing them off against each other.

"If Saudi-Turkish coordination succeeds in Syria ... it can be expected to contribute to Syria's stability and, consequently, to the state of calm and stability in the region," he said.