Russia’s Putin says Syrians to decide country’s future
QAMISHLI, Syria (North Press) – Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Monday that Syrian people would decide the future of their country, not other states, in a news conference in Sochi after meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, TASS reported.
The Russian news agency TASS reported citing the Russian President as saying, “We understand that in order to begin the full-scale revival of this country, it is necessary to achieve national reconciliation and accord and we insist that it is up to Syrians themselves to decide Syria’s future – without imposing any ready-made solutions or models from outside.”
He also stressed on the importance of sharing mutual approaches to the Syrian crisis and “respect for the country’s sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity,” after talks with his Turkish counterpart.
Turkish President Erdogan wants hostilities in Syria to end because they undermine his ability to keep “a presence in extremely politically sensitive regions,” Dmitry Evstafiev, a political scientist and professor at the Higher School of Economics (HSE) University, told Sputnik news agency.
“The Turkish leadership is likely to agree on the necessity: first, to restore the spatial territorial sovereignty of official power in Damascus; second, to recognize President Bashar al-Assad as the leader of the country, and on this basis to start a new cycle of political relations; third, to withdraw from Syria those foreign troops that maintained their presence there illegally,” the expert said.
In a related context, Syrian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates, Faisal Mekdad, stated to the state-run SANA news agency, that the withdrawal of Turkish forces from Syria is a crucial prerequisite for the normalization of relations between Syria and Turkey
SANA reported citing Mekdad as saying, “The Turkish occupation in northern Syria will end. Turkey knows that the withdrawal is the only way towards restoration of relations between our countries to the previous level.”
Turkey and Turkish-backed armed opposition factions, aka the Syrian National Army (SNA), conduct three military operations in Syria, occupying areas in the northern countryside of Aleppo, northern Syria, Afrin region in northwest Syria and Sere Kaniye and Tel Abyad in northeast Syria.