ANKARA (Al Jazeera/AP) – Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said that he may sit down with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to foster peace and stability in Syria, a week after a meeting between the defence ministers of the two countries.
Russian, Turkish and Syrian defence chiefs and top intelligence officers held talks in Moscow last week in the highest level of official contact between the archrivals in more than a decade.
“Turkey, Russia and Syria have launched a process in Moscow,” the Turkish president said, speaking in the capital Ankara, adding that the foreign ministers of the three countries are expected to gather in a trilateral format soon.
“After that we may meet as the Russian, Turkish, and Syrian leaders, depending on the developments. Our aim is to establish peace and stability in the region,” Erdogan added.
The foreign-backed war in Syria, which has been going on for almost 12 years, has killed hundreds of thousands of people, displaced millions and drawn in regional and world powers.
Turkey has backed and hosted militants in Syria since the beginning of the conflict, while Russia and Iran have politically and militarily supported the Syrian government.
However, violence in Syria has ebbed in recent years, largely because of the dialogue and coordination between Moscow and Ankara.
The developments come amid the continued looting in the country by the U.S.
The American occupation forces have once again smuggled oil and wheat from Syria to their bases in northern Iraq.
Citing Syrian sources and news media, the Arabic service of Russia’s Sputnik news agency said the U.S. military used 60 trucks and tankers on Thursday to smuggle oil and wheat from Syria’s northeastern province of Hasakah to the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region in the north of Iraq.
“A convoy consisting of 36 tanks loaded with stolen Syrian oil, was taken out by the American occupation forces to their bases in northern Iraq, through the illegal Al-Walid crossing,” the sources said, adding, “Another convoy of 24 trucks, accompanied by U.S. military vehicles, carrying wheat stolen from grain centers and silos in Hasakah, was removed by the US army through the illegal Al-Walid crossing as well.”
The report said the convoys were escorted by the U.S. armored military vehicles and Kurdish militants.