President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said he could meet with Syria's Bashar Assad when the right time comes, reinforcing tentative recent steps to restore ties between the two sides.
"As of now, such a meeting is not on the agenda. But I cannot say it is impossible for me to meet with Assad," Erdoğan told a press conference at the Prague meeting of the European Political Community.
"When the right time comes, we can also go to the way of meeting with the President of Syria," he added.
Any normalization between Ankara and Damascus would reshape the decadelong Syrian war. Turkish backing has been vital to sustaining Syrian moderate opposition in their last major territorial foothold in the northwest after Assad defeated the opposition across the rest of the country, aided by Russia and Iran.
In August, Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu highlighted the necessity of a strong central administration to prevent the disintegration of Syria. While Çavuşoğlu said that he had a quick word with his Syrian counterpart Faisal Mekdad on the sidelines of the Non-Aligned Movement meeting in October in Serbia’s capital Belgrade, the Foreign Ministry underlined that Türkiye would continue to show solidarity with the people of Syria and pursue efforts to find a permanent solution to the Syrian crisis.
There must be a strong administration in Syria to prevent any division of the country, Çavuşoğlu said. “The will that can dominate every corner of its lands can only be achieved through unity and solidarity,” he added. He emphasized the need to take steps for the rebuilding of civil war-torn Syria since 2011.
