Turkish Parliament Speaker expresses readiness to meet his Syrian counterpart
Turkish Parliament Speaker Numan Kurtulmuş expressed his readiness to meet with Syrian People’s Assembly Speaker Hamouda Sabbagh, noting that the Turkish and Syrian peoples have no animosity.
In a televised interview, Kurtulmuş stressed the importance of parliamentary diplomacy, announcing his readiness to meet with his Syrian counterpart if asked to do so.
When asked who has benefited from the situation in the Middle East over the past 13 years, especially in Syria, he replied that “Israel is the only beneficiary in the region”.
These statements come after Syrian President Bashar al Assad’s recent speech before the People’s Assembly, where he stressed the importance of having a clear reference for any negotiation process to ensure its success.
Assad considered the absence of a reference to be one of the reasons for the failure to achieve results in previous meetings with Ankara.
He also stressed the need for Türkiye to withdraw from the Syrian territories it occupies and to stop its support for terrorism, noting that Syrian sovereignty is the basic criterion in any negotiations.
In a related context, the Turkish newspaper Hürriyet published an article by journalist Abdülkadir Selvi, who is close to the ruling Justice and Development Party, in which he explained that Ankara seeks to hold a meeting between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Syrian President Bashar al Assad through backdoor diplomacy to normalize relations between the two countries.
Selvi stated in his article that the meeting between Erdogan and Assad is a fundamental step in the rapprochement process, but indicated that the date and place of the meeting haven’t yet been determined, while contacts continue between Ankara, Moscow and Damascus.
Selvi added that with the escalation of the situation in Gaza and the possibility of the conflict spreading to other regions, normalizing Turkish-Syrian relations has become urgent, especially in light of the possibility that any crisis in the Israel-Lebanon-Iran triangle could have a significant impact on the two countries.
On related context, Turkish Defense Minister Yaşar Güler described Assad’s recent statements about normalization between Damascus and Ankara as very positive.
Güler told Hürriyet newspaper that Assad has understood and realized what Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said about the possibility of meeting with Assad, and he saw that it was in the interest of both countries to end the conflict environment as soon as possible and for the two countries to return to their normal activities in relations.
