Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that Turkey and Syria are sending serious signals to Moscow that they are interested in resuming dialogue between the countries.
According to Sergey Lavrov, the Syrian government insists that first it is necessary to decide on the withdrawal of the Turkish military contingent from the territory of the Syrian Arab Republic. The diplomat said that Turkey reaffirmed its commitment to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Syria as a matter of principle, but proposed to return to the issue of the withdrawal of its military later.
At the same time, the head of the Russian Foreign Ministry stressed that last year in Moscow within the framework of the quadripartite format Russia-Iran-Syria-Turkey a number of contacts were held at the level of foreign ministries, defence ministries and intelligence services. However, disagreements in the positions of Damascus and Ankara led to the suspension of the negotiation process.
“Since there are signals from both capitals about serious interest in resuming dialogue, we will actively promote the early restart of the negotiation process,” Sergey Lavrov stressed in an interview with the Hürriyet newspaper.
Earlier, Bashar al-Assad said that despite the sincerity of the initiatives proposed by Russia, Iraq and Iran, there was no progress between Syria and Turkey on the issue of rapprochement.
