Turkish Foreign Minister Says Syria Interested To Cooperate With Turkey On Refugee Return

Fahad Shabbir (@FahadShabbir) Published January 03, 2023 | 05:00 PM

ISTANBUL (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 03rd January, 2023) Syria has expressed desire to cooperate with Turkey on the issue of return of Syrian refugees back home, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Tuesday.

"The issues of education, healthcare as well as projects to establish appropriate living conditions are important. In this regard, international contacts with the Syrian authorities have become important. Damascus has expressed desire to cooperate on the issue of refugee return," the minister was quoted by TRT broadcaster as saying.

Cavusoglu also commented on possible talks between the leaders of Turkey and Syria, saying that the idea of holding such a meeting will be assessed after the negotiations between the foreign ministers of the two countries.

"It would not be right to make such predictions. In the end, a decision should be taken by the President (Recep Tayyip Erdogan). But there is something that our president has said: 'There will be a phased dialogue.

' There should be a meeting between the defense ministers and intelligence chiefs, then between the foreign ministers and then leaders," the minister said as quoted by Turkish Sabah newspaper.

Last week, Cavusoglu said that Ankara proposed to hold a meeting of Turkish and Syrian foreign ministers in the second half of January, possibly in a third country. According to the Turkish minister a possible meeting between the leaders of the two countries.

On December 15, 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.