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Syrian President Assad Rejected Russian Requests To Meet With Turkey’s Erdogan: Report

Syrian President Assad Rejected Russian Requests To Meet With Turkey’s Erdogan: Report

Assad believes such a gathering would assist Erdogan in Turkey’s June elections, permitting him to sign progress on returning among the 3.6 million Syrian refugees dwelling in Turkey to its neighbour, in keeping with Reuters.

“Why hand Erdogan a victory without cost? No rapprochement will occur earlier than the elections,” an unnamed supply with data of Syria’s considering advised Reuters.

Turkey hosts the world’s largest refugee inhabitants, and public resentment in opposition to Syrians has been rising within the nation, which is going through a extreme financial disaster. Amid the general public frustration, Erdogan has promised a “voluntary return” of 1 million refugees to Syrian territory managed by Ankara and its allies.

However an unnamed diplomat quoted by Reuters acknowledged Syria sees a gathering with Erdogan as “ineffective if it doesn’t include something concrete, and what they’ve requested for therefore far is the complete withdrawal of Turkish troops [from Syria]”.

Turkey launched its first invasion of Syria in 2016, with the purpose of depriving Kurdish fighters of a base alongside its border. Two extra navy forays adopted in 2018 and 2019.

Ankara’s footprint within the territory has grown since these incursions. The Turkish lira is now the dominant forex within the space. Syrian schoolchildren are taught Turkish as a second language and Turkey pays the salaries of tens of hundreds of allied Syrian rebels and civil servants.

However rapprochement with Damascus may assist Turkey deal with issues about Kurdish militants. Turkish officers have urged in latest days {that a} new floor offensive into Syria could possibly be imminent.

The feud between Assad and Erdogan goes again to the Arab Spring, when the Turkish chief backed the uprisings in opposition to “autocracies” in nations equivalent to Egypt and Tunisia, and in Syria, Turkey funded militants teams against Damascus.

However the outdated fault strains of the Arab Spring have been breaking down and Erdogan, whose nation is being battered by an financial disaster and skyrocketing inflation, has pivoted.

After vowing to not meet with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who got here to energy by way of a navy coup, the 2 had been pictured shaking palms final month on the World Cup in Qatar. Turkey has additionally revived ties with the UAE and Saudi Arabia after years of acrimony.

Final month Erdogan famous he was open to resetting relations with Syria.

“There may be no resentment in politics,” he mentioned in a tv interview over the weekend.

Turkey and Syria’s intelligence chiefs have held a number of conferences in Damascus this 12 months with the purpose of arranging a possible assembly between the 2 nations’ international ministers, however one of many sources quoted by Reuters acknowledged Damascus had turned down the assembly.

Syria may additionally see advantages from normalising ties with its bigger neighbour. Assad met Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed (MbZ) in March on his first go to to an Arab state for the reason that Syrian struggle erupted in 2011.

A supply with data of Turkey’s considering advised Reuters an Assad-Erdogan assembly may nonetheless be attainable “within the not too distant future”.

“[Russian President Vladimir] Putin is slowly making ready the trail for this,” the supply continued, including, “It will be the start of a serious change in Syria and would have very constructive results on Turkey. Russia would profit too… given it’s stretched in lots of areas.”

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