Turkey will take steps together with the United States in Syria’s Manbij region, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Friday, following his meeting with new US Secretary State Mike Pompeo in Brussels.
Cavusoglu made the comment to Turkish broadcasters after meeting with Pompeo, who went straight to NATO headquarters on Friday, barely 12 hours after being sworn into his job, Reuters reported.
Cavusoglu also said there was no French presence in Manbij and added Turkey could evaluate “good offers” for Patriot missiles or other air defense systems from allies.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's spokesman Ibrahim Kalin has previously said that a deal with the US to reduce tensions over the Kurdish-held Manbij is "doable" but requires Washington to clear up confusion in its policy.
Agence France Presse also quoted him as saying that a Turkish operation to take the Syrian city of Tal Rifaat was no longer on the agenda after Russian assurances that Kurdish fighters were no longer there.
Kalin told foreign reporters in Istanbul that Turkey had proposed moving Kurdish fighters out of Manbij east of the Euphrates River and then US and Turkish forces jointly managing security.
"We still believe that this is achievable and this is doable," he said, urging "concrete steps" from the American side on an issue that was "really straining relations."
