Islamabad, Dec 23: Turkey’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan met with Syria’s new leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, in Damascus on Sunday, as confirmed by Ankara’s Foreign Ministry. A video shared by the Anadolu news agency showed the two leaders greeting each other, but no details about the meeting’s location in the Syrian capital were provided.
Fidan had announced on Friday his plans to travel to Damascus to meet Syria’s new leadership, who ousted Bashar al-Assad in a swift offensive.
Earlier, Turkey’s intelligence chief, Ibrahim Kalin, had visited Damascus on December 12, shortly after Assad’s fall. Kalin was filmed leaving the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, surrounded by bodyguards, as shown by the private Turkish channel NTV.
Since the 2011 uprising against Assad’s regime, Turkey has been a major supporter of the opposition, providing assistance to various rebel groups, offering refuge to Syrian dissenters, and hosting millions of refugees.
However, Fidan dismissed claims by US President-elect Donald Trump that the opposition’s victory in Syria represented an “unfriendly takeover” by Turkey.
