Turkish Presidency: Erdogan opposes meeting Bashar al-Assad at the present time

A member of the Security and Foreign Policy Committee in the Turkish presidency, Shagri Arhan, said that the government of his country is ruling out a meeting between the Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the president Bashar al-Assad in the near future.

Arhan added that there might be a meeting between the two presidents, but there is no specific date or place for such meetings, according to the Russian “Sputnik” News Agency.

The Turkish official stated that President Erdogan opposes meeting Bashar al-Assad, but the devastating earthquake changed Turkish plans, and new changes occurred in the entire agenda of the president.

Orhan emphasized that the approach of the Turkish elections will not allow for a meeting between Erdogan and Bashar al-Assad, pointing out that there are less than 74 days to hold the elections, and the meeting may take place after the elections ended.

It is noteworthy that the Turkish and Russian foreign ministers discussed last Wednesday several files including the Syrian file, and this came on the sidelines of the G20 Foreign Ministers Meeting in India.

The Russian Foreign Ministry issued a statement after the meeting between Lavrov and Cavusoglu. The statement made it clear that the talks discussed several international issues, on the top was Syria and the efforts to normalize relations between Turkey and the Assad regime.

The statement affirmed that there is a great interest from several countries in the region towards normalizing relations between the Assad regime and the Turkish government, in addition to the file of eliminating “terrorism”.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on January 17 that his country had informed both Tehran and Moscow of its intention to continue the political rapprochement with the Assad regime.