What happened
Türkiye and Syria sign a joint training and advisory memorandum of understanding in Ankara on 13 August 2025. As described in Turkish official material and subsequent reporting it covers training and planning for the reconstituted Syrian army, provision of weapon systems and logistical materiel, and Turkish technical assistance to Syrian military structures and organisation. Implementation runs through 2026: Syrian units train at Turkish Armed Forces facilities, Syrian officer candidates are enrolled at Turkish war colleges across the three services, and Syrian troops take part in Türkiye's EFES-2026 exercise in İzmir in May 2026 — the reconstituted army's first reported participation in an exercise abroad since December 2024. Turkish technical teams are also reported to be repairing runways and control towers at Syrian military airfields; that element is reported rather than officially detailed.
The instrument that converts Türkiye's wartime position into a role inside the Syrian state's own security institutions — the substance behind the module's "first partner" description, and the reason Ankara's stake in Syria is no longer only the north. It also creates the module's newest structural problem: every Syrian military facility Türkiye helps restore is at once an asset of the Syrian state and, in Israel's reading, a potential Turkish one, which is why Syrian airfields have become the physical point at which two external security requirements meet.
Confidence: Moderate
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