Foreign Minister Mevl\u00fct \u00c7avo\u011flu will go to the United States tomorrow ahead of a meeting between foreign ministers of Turkey and Syria, scheduled at the end of January or the beginning of February within the scope of the Ankara-Damascus normalization process. Regarding Damascus\u2019s accusation of Turkey’s being an \u201coccupier,\u201d AK Party Spokesperson \u00d6mer \u00c7elik stated, \u201cSome radical phrases are uttered, and presumptuous sentences are also uttered, but the line of diplomacy must be kept intact, and the channels of collaboration must be kept intact.\u201d<\/p>\n
Efforts continue on the diplomatic front to lead up to a meeting between President Recep Tayyip Erdo\u011fan and Syrian President Bashar Assad. \u00c7avu\u015fo\u011flu will meet with the foreign ministers of the other two actors in Syria, the United States, and Iran, as part of the normalization process. With Ankara\u2019s request, the Turkish-Syrian dialogue began through Moscow\u2019s mediation and advanced with the meeting of the two countries’ defense ministers. Although the United States declared it is against Turkey\u2019s efforts to thaw ties with Syria, Iran has voiced its support for the normalization between Ankara and Damascus.<\/p>\n
Received by Assad in Damascus last Friday, Iran\u2019s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian will meet with \u00c7avu\u015fo\u011flu in Ankara. In his meeting with Assad, the Iranian minister said, \u201cany dialogue between Syria and Turkey, if serious, is a positive step for the benefit of both countries and the region.\u201d During the meeting, the Syrian president remarked, \u201cthe basis of all the attitudes of the Syrian state is always to protect the interests of the Syrian people, and Syria would not go forward in dialogue with Turkey unless it aims at ending the occupation and halting support for terrorist organizations.\u201d Assad also briefed Putin\u2019s Special Representative for Syria, Aleksandr Lavrentyev, during his time in Damascus, stating that \u201cin order for the meetings with the Turkish side to be fruitful,\u201d it must be based on the end of \u201cthe occupation,\u201d i.e., Turkey\u2019s military presence in northern Syria.<\/p>\n
\u201cTerrorist groups, not Turkey, pose the threat\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n The attitude of Damascus and the expected meeting of the two countries’ foreign ministers were asked last night to the AK Party Deputy Chairman and Spokesperson \u00d6mer \u00c7elik. \u201cSome work on steps with Syria is almost completed,\u201d said \u00c7elik, adding, \u201cWhen these are finalized, the foreign ministers will meet. I want to say to our interlocutors in Syria, \u2018The main threat to them is terrorist organizations. The Republic of Turkey is not a threat to them.\u2019 We defend Syria\u2019s territorial integrity in the strongest possible way. What we desire in Syria is no conflict, no bloodshed, no small terror statelets established by the terrorist organizations, and that the Syrian people see their own future through a political solution within the scope of the constitutional process. It is not Turkey that threatens Syria\u2019s territorial integrity; it is terrorist organizations. Turkey carried out this intervention when those terrorist organizations settled in Syria and began to threaten the national security of the Republic of Turkey. All our interventions are legal. What needs to be done today is: Advance these political negotiations, as well as implement joint mechanisms with Syria to clear Syrian territory of terrorist groups. We have the required experience in this whole process. Some radical phrases are uttered, and presumptuous sentences are also uttered, but the line of diplomacy must be kept intact, and the channels of collaboration must be kept intact. Our will is in that direction. Turkey is not an occupier there.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDamascus does not have the means to crush the YPG\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n Presidential Spokesperson \u0130brahim Kal\u0131n told a group of international media representatives, in response to a question regarding Damascus\u2019s attitude, that the operation in Syria is possible at any time. Mazloum Kobani, the leader of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a branch of the PKK\/YPG, also stated that they take Turkey\u2019s \u201cthreats\u201d seriously. \u201cWe expect an attack in February,\u201d he told Amberin Zaman of Al-Monitor and added, \u201cThe town of Kobani is a likely target because of its symbolic meaning for Kurds world over. Turkey is heading for elections, and we are aware that President Erdogan wants to rally nationalist support and he appears to believe that attacking Rojava again can serve this purpose.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe United States showed itself to be against any military operation by Turkey, but America\u2019s efforts are falling short,\u201d he stated, \u201cthey need to do more.\u201d Pointing out that Russia is trying to solve existing problems in Syria by bringing Turkey and the Syrian regime around the same table, Kobani does not believe such attempts can succeed because the Syrian regime will, according to him, never compromise on its own demands, which are Turkey\u2019s withdrawal of all its troops from Syrian soil and that of its support for the armed Sunni opposition groups. Kobani, on the other hand, is confident that the Syrian regime would yield to Turkey\u2019s demands to \u201ccrush\u201d the PKK\/YPG, for Damascus neither has the means to do this nor are circumstances favorable to any such plans.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Foreign Minister Mevl\u00fct \u00c7avo\u011flu will go to the United States tomorrow ahead of a meeting between foreign ministers of Turkey and Syria, scheduled at the end of January or the beginning of February within the scope of the Ankara-Damascus normalization process. Regarding Damascus\u2019s accusation of Turkey’s being an \u201coccupier,\u201d AK Party Spokesperson \u00d6mer \u00c7elik stated, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2158,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[588,1088,531,895,213],"class_list":["post-2157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middleeast","tag-ankara","tag-daamscus","tag-syria","tag-turkey","tag-ypg"],"yoast_head":"\n