Turkey has no preconditions for Syrian dialogue – Turkey’s FM
QAMISHLI, Syria (North Press) – On Tuesday, Turkey’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Mevlut Cavusoglu said Turkey has no precondition for dialogue with the Syrian government.
“There cannot be a condition for dialogue but what is the aim of these contacts? The country needs to be cleared of terrorists… People need to be able to return,” Cavusoglu said.
Amid the recently soft tone adopted by the Turkish officials, this is, however, the most striking statement made by a Turkish official towards the Syrian government in a decade of hostility.
“No conditions for dialogue but what is the aim, the target? It needs to be goal-oriented,” he said.
Lately, Cavusoglu said following a short chat with his Syrian counterpart Faisal Mekdad in Belgrade he called on the Syrian government to reconcile with the Syrian opposition sparking wide scale popular resentment and protests in areas under factions of the Syrian opposition.
Since mid-2011 Syria and Turkey went on opposing sides with Turkey calling on the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to leave office for the brutal crackdown on his opponents, the Turks used to repeat.
However, things seem changing since Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Sochi on August 5.
Syria, however, has not yet commented on the Turkish changing proposals.