30 Sep 2022; MEMO: The Turkish intelligence service has been conducting negotiations with the Syrian regime of Bashar Al-Assad in Damascus to define a "road map" on several issues, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has revealed.
"Our intelligence service is conducting negotiations there [Damascus], and we will define our road map based on the results," Erdogan said during an interview with CNN Turk on Wednesday.
Erdogan renewed the threat to launch a military operation in north-eastern Syria against the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), saying: "We can come any night."
He stressed the need for the SDF to withdraw from the Turkish border, in accordance with the agreement concluded with Russia and the United States after 'Operation Peace Spring' in 2019.
Erdogan called on Moscow and Washington to implement the agreements concluded with Turkiye in 2019 regarding Syria and warned that "the PKK organisation is still spreading near our borders in violation of those agreements."
Turkish officials have in recent weeks spoken about the possibility of starting dialogue with the Syrian regime to address a series of issues, including a political solution to the Syrian civil war and Syrian refugee crisis.
The Assad regime has set several conditions to engage in political dialogue with Turkiye, the most prominent of which is the Turkish forces' withdrawal from Syria and the cessation of support for those considered by the regime as "terrorists".
