Turkiye’s FM meets Syria’s new leader in Damascus

ANKARA (Reuters): Turkiye’s foreign minister Hakan Fidan met with Syria’s new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa in Damascus on Sunday, Ankara’s foreign ministry said.

A video released by the Anadolu state news agency showed the two men greeting each other. No details of where the meeting took place in the Syrian capital were released by the ministry.

Fidan had announced on Friday that he planned to travel to Damascus to meet Syria’s new leaders, who ousted Syria’s strongman Bashar al-Assad after a lightning offensive.

Turkiye’s spy chief Ibrahim Kalin had earlier visited the city on December 12, just a few days after Assad’s fall.

Kalin was filmed leaving the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, surrounded by bodyguards, as broadcast by the private Turkish channel NTV.

Turkiye has been a key backer of the opposition to Assad since the uprising against his rule began in 2011.

Besides supporting various rebel groups, it has welcomed Syrian dissenters and millions of refugees.

However, Fidan has rejected claims by US president-elect Donald Trump that the rebels’ victory in Syria constituted an “unfriendly takeover” of the country by Turkiye.