Iran Attends Moscow Talks on Normalizing Syria-Turkey Ties

Iran on Monday attended a four-party meeting at the level of deputy foreign ministers in Moscow to help normalize relations between Ankara and Damascus. 
The consultations were expected to be of a technical nature to help prepare for talks between the top diplomats of the four countries, namely Iran, Russia, Syria and Turkey, according to TASS.  
The meeting had been previously scheduled for March but was postponed since some partners were not completely ready for it.
The Iranian delegation, headed by Ali Asghar Khaji, foreign minister’s chief advisor in special political affairs, held bilateral talks with the Syrian and Russian sides ahead of the main meeting.
Talks with Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Ayman Sousan and his team were held at Syria’s embassy in Moscow hosted by the Arab country’s ambassador to Russia, Bashar al-Jafari. 
In the meeting with the Russian team, led by Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov, the two sides stressed the need to address differences between Syria and Turkey through peaceful political dialogue. 
They also expressed their support for normalization between the two countries by means of quadrilateral meetings and on the basis international regulations and the principle of good neighborliness, ISNA reported.
“We are hoping that our mediating mission, which is directed at a very important strategic goal—the normalization of Syrian-Turkish relations—will result in our shared success,” Bogdanov had said last week. 
Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian also said last week that the purpose of the four-party meeting was to reconcile the two countries’ views, adding that Iran and Russia would pursue their mediatory efforts to this end. 
“If a framework is reached in the next week’s negotiations, the next round of the meeting can be held at the ministerial level,” he said in Moscow, at a joint press briefing with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov. 

Military Presence 

Besides a bilateral meeting with Iranian officials, the Syrian delegation also met Russian diplomats separately before the summit. 
Sousan had earlier told SANA that Syrian delegates would focus specifically on ending Turkey’s military presence in the Arab country, the fight against terrorism, and non-interference in Syria’s internal affairs by other countries.
Turkey severed its relations with Syria in March 2012, a year after the Arab country found itself in the grip of deadly violence waged by foreign-backed militants, including those supported by Ankara.
Now, after 11 years, the two neighboring countries are taking steps toward reconciliation.
Last December, defense ministers and intelligence chiefs of Russia, Turkey and Syria met in Moscow in what was the highest-level meeting between Ankara and Damascus since the outbreak of the foreign-backed militancy in Syria.
Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad has made any meeting with his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, conditional on Turkey’s withdrawal from northern Syria.