ANKARA (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 28th April, 2023) A meeting between the Russian, Turkish, Syrian and Iranian foreign ministers on the Syrian issue in Moscow is likely to take place before the presidential and parliamentary elections in Turkey scheduled for May 14, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Friday.
From April 3-4, the deputy foreign ministers of the four countries held talks in Moscow to discuss the future ministerial meeting. Following the negotiations, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that the preparation of the ministerial meeting was underway and the process of normalization between Turkey and Syrian had begun. On April 10, Cavusoglu said Moscow would host the next foreign ministers summit in early May.
"There were several proposals for a date. Actually, early May was discussed, but since the Iranian president will go to Damascus at that time, it (the meeting) will take place later. We said that, if possible, (the meeting should be held) not just a few days before the elections (in Turkey), but earlier. According to information from the Russians, we expect the quartet to meet before the elections," Cavusoglu said, as quoted by the Hurriyet newspaper.
Iran and Russia have good relations with Syria, the Turkish defense chief noted, adding that in this regard, he expected the two countries to facilitate the preparation for the meeting. He also recalled that Russian, Turkish, Syrian and Iranian defense ministers had already met, and the representatives of the intelligence services had met for the third time.
Syria has been engulfed by a civil war since 2011, with Syrian President Bashar Assad's forces fighting various armed insurgent groups. Since 2016, the Turkish armed forces have been also conducting air and ground operations in Syria against the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which wants to establish a Kurdish autonomy in Turkey. Damascus has repeatedly called the presence of Turkish forces on the Syrian border illegal and urged Ankara to withdraw its troops.
In 2017, Russia, Turkey and Iran launched a mediation group on the Syrian settlement in Astana. In January 2018, the Russian city of Sochi hosted a congress of the Syrian national dialogue, the first attempt since the start of the conflict to gather an inclusive pool of Syrian political forces. The main result of the Congress was the decision to create a Constitutional Committee, which operates in Geneva and whose main task is to prepare a constitutional reform in Syria.
In December 2022, the defense ministers of Russia, Syria and Turkey held trilateral talks in Moscow to discuss ways to resolve the Syrian crisis. The negotiations marked the first official meeting between the Turkish and Syrian defense chiefs in 11 years.
