Turkish, Syrian, Russian FMs may hold meeting in January

The foreign ministers of Türkiye, Russia and Syria may hold a trilateral meeting in the second half of January, according to statement made after a phone call between Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu and Sergey Lavrov.

Çavuşoğlu and Lavrov discussed the recent meeting between the defense ministers of the three countries in Moscow.

Minister Hulusi Akar travelled to Russia with the head of Türkiye’s National Intelligence Organization (MIT) Hakan Fidan to hold the first official talks with Syrian officials in 11 years.

Russia and Türkiye are involved in Syria, with Moscow, alongside Iran, supporting the Damascus regime against its opponents, and Ankara backing the opposition.

On Saturday, Akar told reporters that Türkiye was in talks with Russia about using Syrian airspace in a possible operation against the PKK terrorist organization’s Syrian wing, the YPG. Ankara had also indicated that Türkiye and Syria could work on counterterrorism efforts as the YPG occupies almost one-third of the land in Syria – damaging the territorial integrity of the country. After more than 11 years of civil war, Assad controls around two-thirds of the country.