Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs Hakan Fidan met with Syria’s de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa in Damascus on Sunday, Turkey’s foreign ministry said, without providing further details.
Photographs and footage shared by the ministry showed Fidan and Sharaa, leader of Muslim group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) which led the operation to topple former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad two weeks ago, walk ahead of a crowded delegation before posing for photographs.
The two were also pictured shaking hands, hugging and smiling.
Photo: Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs via EPA-EFE
On Friday, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said that Turkey would help Syria’s new administration form a state structure and draft a new constitution, adding that Fidan would head to Damascus to discuss this new structure, without providing a date.
Turkish National Intelligence Organization Director Ibrahim Kalin also visited Damascus on Dec. 12, four days after al-Assad’s fall.
Ankara had for years backed rebels looking to oust al-Assad and welcomed the end of his family’s brutal five-decade rule after a 13-year civil war. Turkey also hosts millions of Syrian migrants it hopes would start returning home after al-Assad’s fall and has vowed to help rebuild Syria.
Fidan’s visit comes amid fighting in northeast Syria between Turkey-backed Syrian fighters and the Kurdish YPG militia, which spearheads the US-allied Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in the northeast and Ankara regards as a terrorist organization.
Earlier, Turkish Minister of National Defense Yasar Guler said Ankara believed that Syria’s new leadership, including the Syrian National Army armed group which Ankara backs, would drive YPG fighters from all territory they occupy in the northeast.
Ankara, alongside Syrian allies, has mounted several cross-border offensives against the Kurdish faction in northern Syria and controls swathes of Syrian territory along the border, while repeatedly demanding that its NATO ally Washington halts support for the Kurdish fighters.
The SDF has been on the back foot since al-Assad’s fall, with the threat of advances from Ankara and Turkey-backed groups as it looks to preserve political gains made in the last 13 years, and with Syria’s new rulers being friendly to Ankara.
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