Moscow talks: Syria-Turkey-Iran-Russia

President Putin and Erdogan and Rouhani started this five years ago in Tehran in 2018.

With all the good news coming out of the Middle East and West-Asia with China proverbially splitting the Red Sea and allowing and supporting new peace, it is easy to forget the difficulty of the Syrian position.  They have to remove Turkiye as well as the US from their legal territory.  But it could be that it is easier and more productive to start with Turkiye and today we saw an unprecedented official meeting between the Defense Ministers and heads of special services under the guidance of Mr Shoigu, Defense Minister  of Russia.

Turkiye has long refused official contact with Damascus and came up with one excuse after the other.  Turkiye is in a difficult position as well, as there are 3,500,000 registered refugees of the Syrian Civil War (which was not a Civil War but a hegemonic attack) in Turkey, which hosts the biggest refugee population in the whole world.   But later, with continuous diplomatic efforts, even the position of Turkiye began to change.  Turkiye was obviously not keen to disturb its work and its hold on Northern Syria and wants the refugee problem dealt with.  The further problem between Turkiye and Syria is the Kurds, who want a homeland.

Sergei Shoigu first held a series of bilateral talks with the military heads of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Syrian Arab Republic, and the Republic of Türkiye.  And then, they went into a quartet and Turkiye had to bend.  During the meetings, they discussed topical issues of bilateral cooperation as well as various aspects of global and regional security.

At the same time, there were unofficial contacts through the special services, and more recently through the Russian Foreign Ministry. And so, Russia and Iran were able to bring Syria and Turkey to the same table to discuss the situation in northern Syria. This could be a major start of unknotting the last of the knots and beating swords into plowshares.

Comments of the Syrian Ministry of Defense: 🇸🇾

A quartet meeting of the defense ministers of Syria, Russia, Iran and Turkey took place today, in which they discussed the matter of the Turkish forces withdrawal from Syrian territory, as well as the implementation of the agreement on the international M4 motorway.

Comments via Anadolu Agency quoting the Turkish Ministry of Defense 🇹🇷:

– The quartet meeting between Turkey, Russia, Syria and Iran in Moscow discussed concrete steps that can be taken to normalize Turkish-Syrian relations.
– The quartet meeting discussed ways to intensify efforts to return the Syrian refugees to their lands.
– The quartet meeting discussed ways to combat all terrorist organizations and extremist groups on Syrian soil.