ANKARA, March 20. /TASS/. A four-party meeting of senior diplomats on Syria has been postponed at Russia’s request, but no new date has yet been agreed, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Monday.
"The Russian side has informed us that it has not yet completed its preparations and requested a postponement [of the meeting]. It was proposed that the meeting be held in a different timeframe and we agreed," he said, adding that he does not rule out that the meeting was actually postponed at Syria’s request.
A meeting of Russian, Iranian, Syrian and Turkish deputy foreign ministers had been planned in Moscow in March to discuss preparations for a ministerial meeting on normalizing relations between Ankara and Damascus.
When asked whether delegations from the relevant foreign ministries could have met before the talks in December among the Turkish, Syrian and Russian defense ministers, Cavusoglu noted that the meeting of the three countries’ military chiefs was purely technical. "It addressed technical matters, whereas political issues are now in focus. There are a lot of political issues, and preparations are necessary for a [top-level] meeting. Much is to be discussed concerning which steps could be taken on which issues, and on which matters cooperation could be established. Everything is done in phases: first, the military and intelligence officials meet, then a meeting of the foreign ministers is held. A preparatory meeting is necessary between such meetings and then top-level talks follow. We agreed earlier on a roadmap [for the talks]," the top Turkish diplomat noted.
The process of normalizing relations between Ankara and Damascus kicked off on December 28, 2022 after consultations between the Russian, Syrian and Turkish defense ministers in Moscow. The three country’s defense chiefs agreed to set up a joint trilateral commission. These consultations are supposed to be followed by a meeting of the foreign ministers, whose agenda will include organizing talks between President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey and President Bashar Assad of Syria. Later, it was reported that Iran would join the consultations at the foreign ministerial level.
Erdogan told journalists on December 15, 2022 that he had offered his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, to organize a trilateral meeting with the Syrian leader. This summit, in his words, should be preceded by talks between the security service heads and the defense and foreign ministers.