Turkish Foreign Minister: A possibility for a third country to host the meeting between Erdogan and Assad
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said there is a possibility of a meeting between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Syrian President Bashar al Assad in a third country for joint talks.
Fidan who gave an interview to the Turkish Sabah newspaper said, that Ankara wants Damascus to open a dialogue with the Syrian opposition.
Fidan pointed out that the meeting, if it takes place, will be held in a third country, without revealing the details of the place or date, stressing that discussions with Syrian officials on the place and time of the meeting are still ongoing, without specifying specific dates so far.
He added that the Syrian side was ready to meet without any preconditions.
Fidan stressed that reconciliation with the Syrian opposition is the responsibility of the Syrian authorities, and that Türkiye encourages this, but cannot impose it.
He stressed that reaching an agreement with Damascus and ignoring the opposition was not possible.
The Syrian authorities should start dialogue with the opposition to discuss possible solutions to the problems, he said.
In previous statements, Fidan indicated that he was working on a meeting between Erdogan and Assad, but stressed that it was still too early to talk about any concrete results.
For his part, the press secretary of the Russian president, Dmitry Peskov, said that Russia share the interest of other countries in improving relations between Türkiye and Syria.
