Ankara agreed to withdraw troops from Syrian territory following trilateral talks between the defense ministers of Russia, Syria and Turkey in Moscow on Wednesday, Syrian media reported, citing anonymous sources in Damascus.
According to the reports, Turkey agreed to withdraw forces from the territories they occupied in northern Syria. Russia, Turkey and Syria also discussed the implementation of the agreement made in 2020 on the opening of the M4 highway linking Aleppo to Latakia, the source said.
The sides reportedly stressed that the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), outlawed in Turkey, was "a proxy of Israel and the United States" and posed "the greatest danger to Syria and Turkey."
On December 15, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that he had offered to Russian President Vladimir Putin to hold a meeting between the leaders of Turkey, Russia and Syria, which would be preceded by a meeting of the heads of the intelligence services, defense and foreign ministries.
On December 28, the Russian Defense Ministry said that the defense ministers of Russia, Syria and Turkey held trilateral talks in Moscow to discuss ways to resolve the Syrian crisis. The talks marked the first official meeting between Ankara and Damascus in 11 years.
The war in Syria has been ongoing since 2011, with various armed insurgent groups, including terrorist organizations, fighting the Syrian Army in an attempt to topple the government of President Bashar Assad. Since 2016, the Turkish armed forces have also been conducting air and ground operations in Syria against armed Kurdish groups. Moscow and Ankara have been acting as mediators in the conflict within various frameworks, such as the mediation group on the Syrian settlement in Astana launched together with Iran in 2017 or the Congress of the Syrian national dialogue hosted in the Russian city of Sochi in 2018.
Hulusi Akar, Ali Mahmoud Abbas, and Sergey Shoigu, the defense ministers of the three nations, met in Moscow on Wednesday for the first time since the start of the Syrian conflict in 2011.
According to the paper’s source in Damascus, the negotiations resulted in “Turkey’s consent to completely withdraw its troops from the Syrian territories that it occupies in the north of the country.”
Ankara and Damascus also expressed a common view that the Syrian-based Kurdish YPG militia, which Turkey associates with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), “are agents of Israel and the US, and pose a grave threat to both Turkey and Syria.”
Turkey considers the separatist PKK and allied Kurdish groups to be “terrorist organizations” that threaten its national security. The Turkish military carried out airstrikes against YPG targets in northern Syria in November, with Ankara saying a ground operation in the area was also on the cards.
A special trilateral commission will be created by Russia, Turkey and Syria to ensure that the agreements reached in Moscow are honored, Al-Watan reported.
Akar told local media on Saturday that “one shouldn’t expect that everything will be solved at once in a single meeting,” RT reported.
In Moscow, Turkey “emphasized that we respect Syria’s territorial integrity and sovereign rights, and that our only goal is the fight against terrorism” including the PKK/YPG and Daesh (ISIL or ISIS),” he said.
Ankara and Damascus have agreed to continue talks to deepen reconciliation, Akar added. He also suggested that those negotiations could even result in a joint anti-terrorist operation involving the two countries, which would happen “if we can solve our problems related to defense and security, if we can meet our needs.”
The Syrian side had earlier described the meeting in the Russian capital as “positive,” while Russia’s defense ministry said the talks had been conducted in a constructive manner and stressed the need for the continuation of such engagement.
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