MOSCOW, January 29. /TASS/. Talks on normalizing relations between Syria and Turkey broke down at the end of last year, Russian Special Presidential Envoy for Syria Alexander Lavrentyev told TASS.

"Since the end of last year, since the fall, this process has somewhat stalled, primarily because the Syrian side felt it necessary to get assurances from the Turkish side that the military contingent that is now illegally on the territory of Syria would be withdrawn in the long term," he said.

"No one is saying that this military contingent will be withdrawn in the near future," Lavrentyev pointed out. "Nevertheless, this is unacceptable for Ankara for certain reasons, although I believe that such statements have been made unofficially and at various levels by the Turkish side, that they will not stay in Syria and sooner or later, when certain appropriate conditions are met, the Turkish contingent will be withdrawn," the envoy noted.

Lavrentyev recalled that former Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu had said as much in the past. "But this was an unofficial statement," he pointed out. "The Turkish side does not , however, want to make this official," he said. According to the envoy, this is currently "a very big obstacle for Damascus, because in this case the Syrian population will not understand the actions of its government, which is going to negotiate with a country that occupies a part of Syrian territory, and a rather large part, almost twice the size of Lebanon."

At the same time, Lavrentyev emphasized that the issue of normalizing Syria-Turkey relations "still remains at the forefront of Russia’s approach to the Syrian settlement." "We believe that this is a very important issue on which we need to make progress," he pointed out.

Lavrentiev also noted that last year, "in fact, there were quite active efforts made towards this, and not only meetings at the expert level." "At the beginning there was a trilateral format, and then Iran came into the mix, that is, a four-party dialogue; in this format there were meetings involving defense ministers and foreign ministers. Then there were meetings between deputy ministers," he said.