ANKARA, July 7. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin is looking at Turkey’s initiative to hold talks on the normalization of relations between Ankara and Damascus in Turkey, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said.

"We are now at a stage when as soon as [Syrian President] Bashar Assad takes a step toward improving relations with Turkey, we will do the same. Because we have never been enemies with Syria, we used to meet with Assad as a family. We can send our invitations any moment. We hope that thanks to this we will be able to raise the Turkish-Syrian relations to the level they once were at. Putin has his views on a meeting in Turkey. The Iraqi prime minister also has his approaches to this matter. We have always been talking about mediation, then why can’t our neighbors be acting as mediators?" the Anadolu news agency quoted him as saying.

The Turkish leader said on Friday that he is looking at inviting the Russian and Syrian presidents to Turkey to discuss the potential normalization of relations between Ankara and Damascus and the settlement of the situation in Syria in general. "If Mr. Putin can visit Turkey, it may be the beginning of a new process" of the normalization of the Turkish-Syrian relations," he said back then, calling for establishing "a permanent settlement mechanism."

Syria’s Al Watan newspaper said in late June, citing government sources, that Baghdad will host talks between Syria and Turkey. It did not say however when such talks could be held.

Meanwhile, Russian presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov said that the Kremlin "has nothing to say so far" about potential normalizations talks between Syria and Turkey in Baghdad.