“Erdogan’s Previous Threat to Syrian President Assad Circulates on Social Media Amid Recent Turkish-Syrian Rapprochement”

Dubai, United Arab Emirates (CNN) – Activists circulated on social media, a previous tweet by the Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, swearing that the Syrian President, Bashar al-Assad, “will pay the price dearly,” after the recent Turkish-Syrian rapprochement.

Erdogan had said in the circulated and published tweet on May 5, 2013: “I say to Assad: The number of victims killed in Syria has approached 100,000 people. I swear by God, you will pay the price dearly.”

Activists also circulated pictures of the Syrian and Turkish foreign ministers shaking hands on the sidelines of the four-way meeting on Syria in the Russian capital, Moscow, which brought together, along with Turkey and Syria, the foreign ministers of Russia and Iran.

Erdogan had said in statements in early January that he could meet with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad “to establish peace.” The two countries sent their defense ministers and intelligence chiefs to hold talks in Moscow in the presence of their Russian counterparts at the time, at the highest level of a meeting between Ankara and Damascus. since 2011.

The meeting marks a dramatic shift in Turkey’s decade-long position on Syria, where Ankara has been the main supporter of political and armed factions fighting to topple Bashar al-Assad. The Turkish army maintains a presence across the Syrian border and inside northern Syria, where it supports the Syrian opposition forces.