A meeting between the Turkish, Syrian and Russian foreign ministers will be held "
in the second half of January
", announced the head of Turkish diplomacy Mevlüt Cavusoglu, a new stage in the rapprochement initiated between Ankara and Damascus.
“
We have decided to hold a tripartite meeting in the second half of January.
The meeting could take place in a third country
,” Cavusoglu told reporters, according to remarks reported by Turkish broadcaster NTV on Saturday.
A tripartite meeting already took place on Wednesday in Moscow between the Turkish, Syrian and Russian Defense Ministers, the first since the start of the war in Syria in 2011, which greatly strained relations between Ankara and Damascus.
In mid-December, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had indicated that he could meet his Syrian counterpart Bashar al-Assad after meetings at the level of Ministers of Defense and then Foreign Affairs.
A neighbor of Syria, Turkey has been the most important political and military support for the Syrian opposition for more than a decade.
Moscow, according to analysts, is working to bring its two allies closer together, united by a common "
enemy
", namely the Kurdish forces present in northern Syria, described as "
terrorists
" by Ankara and supported by Washington.
Ankara thus launched a series of air raids at the end of November against positions of Kurdish fighters in northern Syria, threatening a new ground operation, after the three already launched since 2016.
The Turkish and Syrian foreign ministers had a brief informal exchange on the sidelines of a regional summit in 2021 and Ankara had acknowledged contacts between intelligence services.
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Fiercely opposed to the regime of Bashar al-Assad since the start of the conflict in 2011, Turkey has in recent months changed its position with regard to Damascus, at a time when it seeks to appease its relations with Arab countries.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has repeatedly described Mr. Assad as an “
assassin
” in recent years, had thus deemed a meeting with him “
possible
” last month.