ANKARA, December 25. /TASS/. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Tuesday he planned to pay a visit to Russia to discuss the withdrawal of US troops from Syria.

"I will travel to Russia to evaluate the process of [US] forces’ withdrawal [from Syria]," the Haberturk newspaper quotes the minister as saying.

The date of his visit was not specified.

According to Cavusoglu, Turkey and the United States have agreed to complete the implementation of the roadmap on Syria’s Manbij before the US pullout of Syria. The top diplomat stressed that, if France wanted to retain military presence in Syria to protect terrorists from the Self-Defense Forces [Kurdish units - TASS], that would benefit neither France nor these Self-Defense Forces.

On December 19, US President Donald Trump announced Washington’s decision to begin the withdrawal of US forces from Syria. He noted that the United States had succeeded in its mission to defeat the Islamic State terror group and that it was time to bring US troops home. Currently, there are 2,000 US military servicemen there. According to US officials, the withdrawal of the US forces will take from 60 to 100 days.

Washington launched its military operation against the Islamic State (IS) terror group (outlawed in Russia) in Iraq in June 2014 and in Syria - in September 2014.