Turkish ministers to meet Syria’s Sharaa in Damascus

ISTANBUL: A high-level Turkish delegation is set to meet Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa in Damascus Monday, Turkiye’s foreign ministry announced.

Both countries have developed close ties since the toppling of longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad late last year, and the visit by Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and Defence Minister Yasar Guler allows for a “general assessment” of relations, a ministry source told AFP.

Talks will also address “progress in implementing the March 10 agreement” between Damascus and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces on integrating the Kurds’ semi-autonomous civil and military institutions into the state by year-end, the source said.

Differences between the two sides have so far held up the deal’s implementation.

Last week, Hakan Fidan warned the SDF – which controls vast swathes of Syria’s oil-rich northeast –  that patience among key actors was “running out” and advised against further delays to integrate its forces.

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Ankara also plans to broach “emerging security risks in southern Syria due to Israeli aggression”, the source said, as well as Syria’s official entry into a US-led coalition against the Islamic State group.

US forces struck more than 70 IS group targets in Syria last week in what President Donald Trump described as “a very serious retaliation” for a deadly December 13 attack on American troops in Palmyra.

“Cooperation (between Damascus and Ankara) aims to prevent the resurgence of Daesh (IS), which seeks to exploit fragility in Syria,” the Turkish ministry source said.

Turkiye shares a 900-kilometre border with Syria. Between 2016 and 2019, Turkiye launched three offensives in northern Syria against Syrian Kurdish fighters and the IS group.

IS seized swathes of Syria and neighbouring Iraq in 2014, before being territorially defeated in Syria in 2019, but has since maintained a presence there, particularly in the country’s vast desert.