Sources: Al-Assad rejected a proposal for a "useless" meeting with Erdogan
Three sources said today, Friday, that Syria is resisting Russian mediation efforts to hold a summit with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, after more than a decade of bitter hostility.
Russia has helped Syrian President Bashar al-Assad turn the tide of the war in his favor in confronting the armed groups, and says it is trying to put a political end to the conflict between the two countries and wants to hold talks between the two leaders.
Erdogan indicated his readiness for rapprochement.
In remarks a week after he shook hands with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi last month, Erdogan said Turkey could "put things on the right track with Syria."
"There can be no rancor in politics," Erdogan said in a televised debate over the weekend.
But three sources familiar with Syria's position on the potential talks said Assad had rejected a proposal for Erdogan to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Two sources said that Damascus believes such a meeting could strengthen the Turkish president's position before elections next year, especially if it addresses Ankara's goal of repatriating some of the 3.6 million Syrian refugees from Turkey.
One of them said, "Why do we give Erdogan a free victory? There will be no rapprochement before the elections," adding that Syria also rejected the idea of a meeting of the two foreign ministers.
The third source, a diplomat familiar with the proposal, said that Syria "considers that this meeting is useless if it does not produce anything tangible, and what they are demanding now is the complete withdrawal of Turkish forces."
Turkish officials said this week that the army needed only a few days to be ready for a ground incursion into northern Syria, where it had already carried out artillery and aerial bombardments.
But the government has also said it is ready to hold talks with Damascus if it focuses on border security, as Ankara wants to remove Syrian Kurdish YPG fighters from the border and move refugees to "safe areas".
A source familiar with Turkey's approach to the issue said a meeting between Assad and Erdogan might be possible "in the not too distant future".
"Putin is slowly preparing for this. It will be the beginning of a big change in Syria and it will have very positive effects on Turkey. Russia will also benefit. Since it is busy in many areas," the source added.
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