CAIRO, July 9. /TASS/. Presidents Bashar Assad of Syria and Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey may hold a meeting in the presence of their Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, after the work on a roadmap for the normalization of Syrian-Turkish relations is over, Russian presidential envoy for the Syrian settlement Alexander Lavrentyev said on Sunday.
In an interview with the Al-Arabiya television channel, he noted that the normalization process between Syria and Turkey "is developing month after month." Thus, in his words, an expert meeting was organized first. It was followed by a trilateral meeting of defense ministers and a meeting of foreign ministers, who instructed their deputies to work on a roadmap. Now, "work is underway to invigorate the roadmap," he said.
"When the sides are through with this work, the presidents will be briefed on its results with an eye of organizing a meeting between Turkish leader Erdogan and Syrian leader Assad in the presence of Russian President Vladimir Putin," Lavrentyev noted.
As for the opening of international highways in northeastern Syrian, the Russian diplomat said that Turkey had undertaken to move armed groups to a distance of six kilometers from the M-4 Hassakah-Aleppo highway and place Turkish checkpoints along the road. "There are certain problems on this matter," he said, adding that some problems are linked with the Turkish side’s relations with these armed groups in the region. "The work is difficult, but we don’t give up and continue to work to coordinate the positions of the Syrian and Turkish sides with the mediation of the Russian military," he said.
"The situation might have been much better but for the United States’ military presence in Syria," he stressed. "American forces are plundering Syria’s resources to compensate for their expenses in this country.".