Assad says will only meet Erdoğan if Turkey withdraws from Syria
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Syria's President Bashar Assad has said they he will only meet President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan if Turkey withdraws its troops from Syria.
"[Any meeting] is linked to us reaching the point when Turkey is ready, fully and without any uncertainty, for a complete withdrawal from Syrian territory," Assad told Russia's state-run RIA Novosti agency yesterday (March 15).
Turkey also should end its support to "terrorist" groups in Syria's north, said Assad, who arrived in Moscow on Tuesday for a meeting with Russia's President Vladimir Putin.
Describing Turkey as an "occupying state," Assad further said, "What significance would any kind of meeting have ... if it doesn't lead to a conclusion of the war in Syria?"
After Putin and Assad's meeting, Kremlin Spokesperson Dmitriy Peskov had said the two leaders had also discussed Ankara-Damascus relations and Russia's role in the rapprochement of the two countries.
Turkey-Syria normalization
President Erdoğan has said multiple times over the past months that he could meet Assad and "reset" relations with the Damascus government.
In late December, defense ministers and intelligence chiefs of Russia, Turkey and Syria met in Moscow in what was the highest-level meeting between Ankara and Damascus since the beginning of the war in Syria.
Over the past year, Turkey has sought to launch a new ground offensive into the Kurdish-controlled parts of northern Syria. After a meeting with Putin last August, Erdoğan had said Russia would give the green light for such an offensive if Ankara reestablished relations with Damascus.
Turkey's military intervention in SyriaSince 2016, Türkiye has carried out four major military operations in Syria, targeting the Kurdish-controlled areas in two of them. In an offensive dubbed the "Operation Olive Branch" in early 2018, Turkey captured the northwestern city of Afrin, a Kurdish city in northwestern Syria, and its surrounding regions from the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). In October 2019, it took control of the towns of Tel Abyad, Suluk and Serê Kaniyê (Ras al-Ayn) in northern Syria after the "Operation Peace Spring." Ankara has since then expressed its intentions to create a 30-kilometer "safe zone" along the Syria-Turkey border by expanding the areas under its control. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in late May 2022 said Türkiye would start a new operation to achieve their purpose, but Russia, Iran and the US opposed such an offensive. Turkey and its allied groups currently control several regions in northwestern Syria, with the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) also having a significant military presence in Idlib, the jihadist stronghold. |
(NT/VK)