Syria, Turkey, Iran, Russia to hold quadrilateral meeting soon
QAMISHLI, Syria (North Press) – A day before the kickoff runoff presidential election, Foreign Minister of Turkey, Mevlut Cavusoglu said that top officials of Syria, Iran, Turkey and Russia will hold a meeting in the Russian capital in the coming days.
Cavusoglu told the Turkish NTV channel that the Representatives of Turkey, Syria, Russia, and Iran will hold a meeting at the level of deputy foreign ministers, as they will make “efforts to normalize Turkey-Syria relations.”
Cavusoglu noted that it is agreed to discuss the safe return of Syrian refugees to government-held areas and the ways to prepare the infrastructure for that in the recent meeting.
Foreign ministers of Syria, Turkey, Russia, and Iran met on May 10 in Moscow over efforts to end decades of tension between Syria and Turkey; during the meeting Russia proposed a roadmap for restoring Syrian-Turkish relations to normal.
Turkey, a NATO member, has supported the political and armed Syrian opposition against the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad since the beginning of the conflict in Syria and even sent Turkish troops to fight on the ground in north Syria.
Turkey has invaded Syria three times since 2016, occupying large swathes of the country’s north and positioning its armed forces along the contact line in Idlib between the Syrian government and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS, formerly al-Nusra Front), a jihadist group.
Late in December 2022, a trilateral meeting took place between the defense ministers of Turkey, Syria and Russia in Moscow, marking the first high-level meeting between Syria and Turkey since the onset of the Syrian war.