Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Tuesday he would most probably meet with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin regarding US withdrawal from Syria, but Kremlin denied the meeting.
However, Erdogan did not disclose the timing of the meeting.
Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, for his part, said he will travel to Russia in the coming days to discuss the same issue, Reuters reported from CNN Turk, which quoted him as saying on Tuesday.
On Monday, Erdogan’s spokesman said Turkey would increase coordination with Russia in Syria following the US decision to withdraw.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Putin does not have immediate plans to meet with the Turkish leader.
Russia’s Permanent Representative to the UN Geneva office Gennady Gatilov announced in an interview with Izvestia on Tuesday that Turkey, which has long common borders with Syria, has certain reasons to respond to threats to its security, especially if those threats come from terrorist organizations.
"We believe that the Kurdish issue is a very sensitive subject of the entire political architecture in Syria.”
“Turkey's activities in [Syria's] north is a temporary phenomenon related to [Ankara's] national security concerns and, first of all, terrorist threat," Gatilov said when asked about Moscow's assessment of Turkey's steps.
Gatilov pointed to the fact that Turkey had expressed support for Syria's territorial sovereignty and added that Russia had no reasons to doubt its plans.
