Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told Russian President Vladimir Putin that for the Sochi Summit and the Astana process to succeed, attacks by the Syrian regime’s on civilians in Eastern Ghouta and Idlib need to stop.
Turkish presidential sources said that Erdogan had made the call for an end to attacks on civilians in a telephone call with Putin late on Thursday.
The Turkish and Russian presidents discussed continuing regime attacks on civilians in Syria as well as bilateral ties, according to presidential sources.
They also discussed the ongoing Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant and Turkish Stream projects as well as other aspects of energy sector cooperation.
The two leaders voiced their resolve to further improve bilateral ties in every area.
Erdogan and Putin also spoke about a meeting of the Turkey-Russia High-Level Cooperation Council set for later this year.
The Syria conference on Sochi is set to be held on January 29-30 with the participation of about 1,700 people.
Turkey has been fiercely opposed to Syrian regime leader Bashar al Assad during his country’s six-year-old civil war but has recently been working with his allies Russia and Iran for a political resolution to the conflict.
The three countries agreed last year to establish a “de-escalation zone” in the opposition-held Idlib province and surrounding region, which borders Turkey, but Syrian regime forces have since launched an offensive in the area.
Concerns over northern Syria
Meanwhile, Erdogan on Thursday said no one could dare to establish a new state in northern Syria, warning that any such effort would be “useless”.
In his remarks at a meeting with local administrators known as mukhtars at the Presidential Complex in capital Ankara, Erdogan said: “Those who are willing to set up a terror passage in northern Syria right now … those areas used to be included [in Turkey’s] national pact borders [also known as Misak-i Milli].
“Do not forget this sensibility. … No one can dare to establish a new state there. They will pay the price for it, if need be.”
He said Turkey could not be a means for the US’ incoherent policies, and neither could it be a country that paid the price for inadequacy that the US itself had demonstrated regarding developments in the region.
Turkey-US relations strained over the latter’s support for the YPG as Turkey considers the PYD and the YPG as offshoots of the PKK, which has waged war against Turkey for more than 30 years. Turkey, US, and EU list the PKK as a terrorist organisation.
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