The date of the meeting between the foreign ministers of Russia, Syria, Turkey and Iran is being agreed upon, and it will be held in the near future. Russian Presidential Special Representative for the Middle East and African countries and Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov told reporters on Monday.
"We are working on it. We are agreeing on the date," he said.
"The sooner, the better," Bogdanov added, answering whether the meeting would take place in early May or earlier.
At the same time, the diplomat noted that the date of the meeting should be convenient for all four ministers. "We didn't set a date, so we didn't postpone anything. We are coordinating [the date] now. There were different opinions, but four ministers, each with their own schedule. I think we should find a suitable date for all four ministers in the near future," Bogdanov pointed out.
Earlier, the Russian foreign ministry reported that the deputy foreign ministers of Russia, Iran, Syria and Turkey discussed preparations for a four-party ministerial meeting at consultations in Moscow on April 3-4.
Path to normalization
The normalization process between Ankara and Damascus was launched on December 28, 2022, in Moscow, when consultations between the heads of the Russian, Syrian and Turkish defense ministries were held. At the meeting, an agreement was reached to create a joint trilateral commission. These consultations are to be followed by a meeting at the level of the foreign ministers, the agenda of which will include holding talks between Turkish and Syrian Presidents Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Bashar al-Assad. Later, it was reported that Iran will take part in the consultations at the level of foreign ministers.
Erdogan told reporters on December 15, 2022, that he had offered his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to hold a trilateral meeting with the Syrian leader. This summit, he said, should be preceded by talks at the level of representatives of special services, defense and foreign ministers.
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Photo: Russian Foreign Ministry
Based on materials from TASS