Iran’s President to Visit Turkey for Trilateral Summit on Syria

The Iranian president will visit Ankara at the official invitation of his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan, deputy head for communications and information at the Iranian president’s office announced.

Heading a high-ranking political and economic delegation, Rouhani will attend the fifth trilateral summit of Iran, Turkey and Russia, the three guarantors of the Astana peace process for the resolution of crisis in Syria, Parviz Esmaili added.

Apart from holding the tripartite summit, the presidents of Iran, Russia and Turkey are going to hold negotiations on the promotion of trilateral cooperation on various economic issues and the regional communications, he added.

According to Esmaili, President Rouhani is also scheduled to hold separate meetings with Turkish President Erdogan and Russia’s Putin for talks on the major bilateral issues and cooperation before returning to Iran on Monday night.

Iran, Russia and Turkey are guarantor countries that brokered a ceasefire in Syria in December 2016, leading to the Astana talks, which are running parallel to the Geneva peace talks.

The leaders of the three countries regularly meet for an assessment of the process which focused on Idlib and adjacent areas - the last stronghold of the rebels - and a political process which awaits the formation of a constitutional committee.

Conflicts erupted in Syria back in 2011, when a small group of opposition forces took up arms against Damascus.

Soon, however, a mix of international terrorists and paid mercenaries mingled with and then largely sidestepped the armed Syrian opposition groups, effectively turning the Arab country into a battlefield for foreign governments opposed to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

But the Syrian military, with advisory military help from Iran and Russia, has retaken control of much of the country, and the conflict is generally believed to be winding down.