THE Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan asked to meet with him Syrian counterpart of Bashar al-Assad in New York, on the sidelines of his work UNin order to agree on the “normalization” of their states’ relations, as he announced before his departure for the USA yesterday Saturday.

Diplomatic and all other relations between the two states were severed in 2011, following the outbreak of the Syrian civil war.

“We asked to meet with Bashar al-Assad in order to normalize relations between Turkey and Syria. We are now waiting for the other side’s response,” the Turkish head of state said yesterday before boarding a flight to New York, where he is expected to speak on Monday.

The Turkish president, who has backed rebel efforts to topple the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, has for months sought a rapprochement with the Damascus· challenged the Syrian president to Turkey — to no avail, so far.

OR Anchorwhich controls much of northwestern Syria through Syrian rebel groups and has also deployed troops in areas of Syrian territory, currently hosts 3.2 million Syrian refugees, according to the United Nations. The population of Turkey is 85 million.

Elsewhere, Mr. Erdogan said that “Gaza will be at the center” of the contacts he will have in New York: “Turkey wants to play a role in ending the atrocities committed in Gaza” by Israel’s armed forces , the Turkish president explained.

“I will refer to joint measures that can be taken against the genocide in Gaza and Israel’s aggressive policies,” he continued. The recent “attacks perpetrated by Israel against Lebanon” showed how “justified Turkey’s concerns are regarding the risks of the spread of war,” he added.

The “international community”, and especially “Western countries”, judged the Turkish president, must “stop simply looking at the murders committed by Israel and take deterrent measures”.

“As Turkey, we will try to see what we can do against the storm of death that global Zionism is going to cause in the Middle East,” he added.

“I will discuss with all the leaders I meet about ending the bloodshed in the Palestinian territories, especially in Gaza,” he insisted.