ANKARA, September 16. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin has arrived in Ankara to take part in a trilateral summit on Syria.
Putin’s aide Yuri Ushakov said earlier the three presidents, Vladimir Putin of Russia, Hassan Rouhani of Iran and Recep Tayyip Erdigan of Turkey, would discuss the situation in Idlib and in northeastern Syria, the humanitarian situation, restoration of vital infrastructure facilities, and the pace of political process in that country.
The summit will be preceded by Putin’s bilateral meetings with his Iranian and Turkish counterparts.
Putin’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov did not rule out that the topic of the recent attacks on Saudi Aramco’s facilities would also be raised at the summit.
The talks are expected to yield a joint statement.
The leaders of Russia, Iran and Turkey gathered for their first summit on Syria in Russia’s Sochi in November 2017. The leaders agreed that the de-escalation zones on Syria’s territory must not undermine that country’s territorial integrity and infringe upon its sovereignty. They also called on the Syrian government and opposition forces to take part in a Syrian National Dialogue Congress. The idea of such congress was advanced by Russian President Vladimir Putin at a Valdai forum in October 2017.
The three leaders had three more meetings on Syrian settlement, in Ankara in April 2018, in Teheran in September 2018, and in Sochi in February 2019.