The future of Syria lies in the hands of its own people, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Monday in a press conference after talks with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in the Russian city of Sochi.
Putin stressed the importance of joint approaches to a resolution of the Syrian conflict and reiterated Russia’s stance on allowing Syrians self-determination without the imposition of external solutions or models, Russian news agency TASS reported.
“We understand that in order to begin the full revival of this country, it is necessary to achieve national reconciliation and agreement, and we insist that it is up to Syrians themselves to decide Syria’s future – without imposing any ready-made solutions or models from the outside,” the Russian president said.
He went on to praise Turkey’s cooperation with Russia on Syria, saying; “In particular, we are working constructively within the Astana format, which is the most effective mechanism for international consultations on Syria.”
Meanwhile, Syria’s Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad stressed on Monday that “the Turkish occupation in northeastern Syria will end” and that Turkish withdrawal was the only way to restore relations between the two countries, Syrian state news agency SANA reported.
Turkey and Turkish-backed opposition groups, known as the Syrian National Army (SNA), have been involved in several military operations in Syria.
The Syrian government has consistently demanded the withdrawal of Turkish forces as a precondition for rapprochement during the last two years of Russian-brokered reconciliation efforts. Meanwhile, Turkey, which controls about nine per cent of Syria’s territory, has shown no immediate intention of withdrawing troops.
During the 20th Astana talks on Syria in June, Turkey and Syria made it clear that there was one issue on which they agreed: opposition to the Kurdish-led Autonomous Administration of Northern and Eastern Syria (AANES).
Following the last Astana talks, Bedran Çiya Kurd, the co-chair of the AANES’s Foreign Affairs Department, had strongly criticised the meeting, pointing out that it had failed to recognise Turkey’s incursion into Syrian territory or the armed groups under its control.
