DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — Syria’s foreign minister stated Tuesday that any discussion in between Syria and Turkey must follow Ankara’s statement that it will withdraw its soldiers from all Syrian areas it manages.
Faisal Mekdad’s remarks throughout a joint press conference with Iran’s acting foreign minister, Ali Bagheri Kani, followed Turkey threatened in current days to act versus Kurdish-led authorities in Syria’s northeast as they prepare to hold local elections next week.
Turkey has actually released 3 significant cross-border operations into Syria considering that 2016 and manages some areas in the north. Ankara was a primary backer of Syrian opposition fighters who have actually been attempting to eliminate Syrian President Bashar Assad from power considering that the dispute started in March 2011.
Efforts to fix up in between Syria and Turkey have actually stopped working to accomplish development considering that early 2023 in spite of conferences in Moscow in between the nations’ foreign ministers and defense ministers.
“The primary condition to any Syrian-Turkish discussion is for Ankara to reveal its preparedness to withdraw from our lands that it inhabits,” Mekdad stated. “We do not work out with those who inhabit our land.”
Bagheri Kani stated Tehran has actually constantly supported territorial stability of all local nations, especially Syria. “We have actually supported and will continue to support Syria in its fight versus terrorism,” he stated, in recommendation to Syrian insurgent groups that Damascus and Tehran think about terrorist companies.
Iran and Russia, primary backers of Assad who participated in Syria’s dispute that has actually eliminated half a million individuals, have actually attempted to moderate in between Turkey and Syria in the past. Throughout the years, Syrian federal government forces have actually taken control of the majority of parts of Syria with their assistance.
On Turkey’s assistance to Syrian insurgent groups in the north, Mekdad stated: “It is not allowable for the Turkish profession of Syrian lands to continue to support terrorist companies in northern Syria.”
Recently, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan stated Ankara won’t be reluctant to act versus Kurdish-led groups in northern Syria that it implicates of links to banned Kurdish militants, if they continue with strategies to hold regional elections in the area on June 11.
Pro-government Syrian media outlets stated Bagheri Kani satisfied earlier Tuesday at the Iranian embassy in Damascus with leaders of Syria-based Palestinian factions. They offered no more information.
In Lebanon, Hezbollah revealed that its leader Hassan Nasrallah satisfied and talked about with Bagheri Kani the unpredictable scenario in Gaza and along the Lebanon-Israel border. Bagheri Kani remained in Lebanon before heading to Syria.
Bagheri Kani informed press reporters that he remained in Syria to go over “an instant end to the Zionists’ criminal activities in (the southern city of) Rafah and providing immediate, instant and genuine help to the oppressed homeowners of Gaza.”