Bayirbujak (), also known as West Turkmeneli () a region in northwestern

Syria Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to Syria–Turkey border, the north, Iraq to Iraq–Syria border, t ...

. The region is viewed as the

Syrian Turkmen Syrian Turkmen, also called Syrian Turks or Syrian Turkish people (; ) are Syrian citizens of Turkish origin who mainly trace their roots to Anatolia (i.e. modern Turkey). Turkish-speaking Syrian Turkmen make up the third largest ethnic group ...

homeland. Bayırbucak includes the main settlements of

Kessab Kessab ( ; ), also spelled Kesab or Kasab, is a town in northwestern Syria, administratively part of the Latakia Governorate, located 59 kilometers north of Latakia. It is situated near the border with Turkey on the slope of Mount Aqraa, 800 me ...

Ras al-Bassit Ras al-Bassit (), the classical Posidium or Posideium (, ''Posidḗion''), is a small town in Syria named for a nearby cape. It has been occupied since at least the late Bronze Age and was a fortified port under Greek and Roman rule. Herodotus—a ...

, Umm al-Tuyour, Burj al-Islam, Ghimam, as well as the

Turkmen Mountain Turkmen Mountain (; ''Jabal Turkman'', ) is a mountain range in the north of the Latakia region of Syria, in the area called Bayırbucak locally in Turkish, neighboring the Turkish border. The name is not historically attested in written sourc ...

region. Bayırbucak borders

Hatay Province Hatay Province (, ) is the southernmost province and metropolitan municipality of Turkey. Its area is , and its population is 1,686,043 (2022). It is situated mostly outside Anatolia, along the eastern coast of the Levantine Sea. The province ...

to the north,

Jabal al-Akrad Jabal al-Akrad ( ''Jabal al-Akrād'', ''Mountain of the Kurds'') is a rural mountainous region with an elevation that ranges from above sea level, in northwestern Syria at the northern end of the Coastal Mountain Range or Jabal Ansariya. It is ...

to the east, Latakia city to the south, and the

Mediterranean Sea The Mediterranean Sea ( ) is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the east by the Levant in West Asia, on the north by Anatolia in West Asia and Southern Eur ...

in the west.

Etymology

Bayırbucak is a Turkish

exonym An endonym (also known as autonym ) is a common, name for a group of people, individual person, geographical place, language, or dialect, meaning that it is used inside a particular group or linguistic community to identify or designate them ...

, and not the official name for the region, which is Al-Rabiaa subdistrict. The word Bayırbucak comes from two different words in Turkish: bayır (en: hillside) and bucak (en: district). According to Ottoman archival documents, Bayir was the official name of the district (''nahiye'') in the Ottoman period. It is sometimes referred to as West Turkmeneli to distinguish from the

Iraqi Turkmen The Iraqi Turkmen (, عراق تورکمنلری; Arabic: تركمان العراق), also referred to as Iraqi Turks, (, عراق توركلری; ) are the third largest ethnic group in Iraq. They make up to 10%–13% of the Iraqi population. I ...

homeland, known as East Turkmeneli.

Notable events

On 24 November 2015, two

Turkish Turkish may refer to: * Something related to Turkey ** Turkish language *** Turkish alphabet ** Turkish people, a Turkic ethnic group and nation *** Turkish citizen, a citizen of Turkey *** Turkish communities in the former Ottoman Empire * The w ...

F-16 The General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon is an American single-engine supersonic multirole fighter aircraft originally developed by General Dynamics for the United States Air Force (USAF). Designed as an air superiority day fighter, it e ...

s shot down one of two Russian

Su-24 The Sukhoi Su-24 (NATO reporting name: Fencer) is a supersonic, night fighter, all-weather tactical bomber developed in the Soviet Union. The aircraft has a variable-sweep wing, Twinjet, twin engines and a side-by-side seating arrangement for it ...

fighter jets, which violated Turkish airspace while in an operation to attack a Turkmen rebel militia in Bayırbucak. One Russian pilot was killed by Turkmen forces under the command of

Alparslan Çelik Alparslan Çelik (born 1982) is a Turkish Islamist Nationalist. In 2014 he joined the Syrian Turkmen Brigades of the Free Syrian Army and fought against the Syrian Arab Army (SAA). On 24 November 2015, after Turkey shot down a Russian bomber j ...

. Heavy Russian aerial bombardments during the 2015–16 Latakia offensive resulted in a very difficult situation in the Bayırbucak Turkmen regions, causing almost all

s to flee the region to

Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...

. The Syrian government of

Bashar al-Assad Bashar al-Assad (born 11September 1965) is a Syrian politician, military officer and former dictator Sources characterising Assad as a dictator: who served as the president of Syria from 2000 until fall of the Assad regime, his government ...

began a policy of settling

Alawites Alawites () are an Arab ethnoreligious group who live primarily in the Levant region in West Asia and follow Alawism, a sect of Islam that splintered from early Shia as a ''ghulat'' branch during the ninth century. Alawites venerate Ali ...

into the houses of Turkmen civilians who had fled the region.

References

Latakia District Geography of Syria Turkmen communities in Syria {{Syria-geo-stub