Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov said on Friday that Moscow looks very positively at Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s idea of holding a meeting of the leaders of Turkey, Syria and the Russian Federation.
On Thursday, the Turkish president said he had offered Russian President Vladimir Putin a tripartite meeting between the leaders of Turkey, Russia and Syria, according to Turkish media.
The Turkish president said Putin welcomed the idea of the tripartite meeting, adding: “In this way we will have started a series of meetings”.
Erdogan continued: We want to take a tripartite Turkish-Russian-Syrian step, and for this we need to hold meetings first between the intelligence agencies, then the defense ministers, and then the foreign ministers.
Earlier, the Turkish president announced that Turkey had requested Russia’s support and discussed taking joint actions with it in northern Syria, where Ankara is trying to carry out a ground operation.
In a press release from the capital, Ankara, the Turkish president added: “We have asked for the support of Russian President Vladimir Putin to make joint decisions, and perhaps work together to take joint steps in northern Syria.”
The “RIA Novosti” news agency also reported that Syria’s position on supporting the idea, which could include holding a summit between the leaders of the three countries, is not yet known, but Moscow is in contact with the Damascus officials.
Reuters had cited three sources close to the Syrian regime’s position that al-Assad had rejected Putin’s proposal to meet Erdogan and that Damascus had postponed the issue until after the Turkish presidential and parliamentary elections, so as not to give Erdogan a chance “to win free”.
Two of the three sources explained that “Damascus believes such a meeting could strengthen Erdogan’s position ahead of next year’s elections, especially if it addresses Ankara’s goal of returning some of the 3.6 million Syrian refugees from Turkey.” One of them explained that the regime also rejected the idea of holding a meeting of the foreign ministers of the two countries.
