Turkey, Russia and Iran are expected to meet this weekend in Qatar to discuss their response to a shock rebel advance that has dramatically altered the front lines in Syria’s 13-year civil conflict.
The meeting will take place on the sidelines of the Doha Forum, an annual event that attracts senior officials, academics and business leaders from more than 150 countries to discuss common concerns.
Turkey’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan “will meet with the Russian and Iranian ministers … for a meeting under the Astana process” on the sidelines of the forum, a foreign ministry source told Agence France-Presse.
Russia and Iran, which support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, launched the Astana process along with Turkey — which supports some of the rebel factions — in the Kazakh capital, Astana, in 2017. Their goal was to find a political solution to the civil war.
Russia and Turkey succeeded in brokering a ceasefire in 2020 that largely quelled the fighting, leaving Assad in control of all major cities and an estimated 70% of Syrian territory.
But in a stunning offensive over the past week, Islamist rebels Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) seized Syria’s second-largest city, Aleppo, and moved on to capture Hama, inching closer to Syria’s third-largest city, Homs.
Hama had remained in government hands since civil war erupted in 2011.
According to Kremlin statements reported by Reuters, Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke this week with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, insisting on “the need to end aggression against the Syrian state.”
Erdogan, according to reports, expressed Turkish support for Syria’s territorial integrity but underscored the Assad government’s obligation to “engage in the political solutions” to the crisis.
