Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced on Thursday that he may meet with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as part of a new peace process, after the defense ministers of the two countries met in Moscow last week.
Erdogan added - during a speech in Ankara - that the next step is to hold a tripartite meeting that includes the foreign ministers of Turkey, Russia and Syria for the first time, in order to further enhance communication.
"We have started a tripartite Russian-Turkish-Syrian operation...we will bring our foreign ministers together, and then, based on developments, we will meet together at the level of leaders," the Turkish president said, stressing that the aim is to achieve reassurance and calm, and peace in the region.
For its part, the United States called last Tuesday on the countries of the world to refrain from normalizing their relations with the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, commenting on the recent Turkish rapprochement with this regime under Russian auspices.
Last week, Moscow witnessed a meeting that brought together the defense ministers and intelligence chiefs of Russia, Turkey and the Syrian regime, which is the first official meeting to be held at a ministerial level between Ankara and the Assad regime since the outbreak of the Syrian revolution in 2011.
The Turkish Ministry of Defense stated - in a statement - that the Turkish-Russian-Syrian meeting in Moscow discussed "the Syrian crisis, the refugee problem, and the joint fight against terrorist organizations in Syria."
And at the end of last November, the Turkish president said that relations with the Syrian regime "can be restored to normal in the next stage, as happened with Egypt, as there is no permanent rivalry in politics."