Assad: Contacts with Ankara must aim at “the end of Turkish occupation” in Syria

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said today that the ongoing meetings between Syrian and Turkish officials, being held under the auspices of Russia, should aim at “the end of Turkey’s occupation” of Syrian territory to “be fruitful”, underlines a statement from the Syrian presidency.

This is the first comment from Assad, who received Alexander Lavrentiev, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s special envoy for Syria, on the subject of recent meetings between Turkish and Syrian officials in more than a decade.

A tripartite meeting was held in Moscow in December between the defense ministers of Turkey, Syria and Russia, the first since the start of the war in Syria in 2011.

The Syrian president judges that “these (trilateral) meetings, to be fruitful, must be based on previous coordination and planning between Syria and Russia” and aim “to end the (Turkish) occupation (in Syria) and support to terrorism”.

Earlier today, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, who is in Rwanda, said a meeting of the three countries’ foreign ministers would take place “as soon as possible, perhaps in early February.”

In mid-December, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he could meet his Syrian counterpart, with whom he had good relations before 2011.

A neighbor of Syria, Turkey has for more than a decade been the most important political and military force supporting the Syrian opposition, including Islamist groups, which Damascus labels “terrorists”.

Turkey has launched three strikes on Syrian soil since 2016 against Kurdish forces in the north, which have allowed it to take control of a border strip, an “occupation” that Damascus denounces.

RES-EMP

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