Meeting of Turkey, Syria, Iran, Russia, officials postponed

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said last week that the deputy foreign ministers of the four countries would meet this week in Moscow, ahead of planned talks between foreign ministers at a later date, aimed at resolving the crisis in Syria.

The deputy foreign ministers’ meeting had been scheduled for March 15-16, the state-run Anadolu Agency reported on Monday.

But the meeting was postponed for “technical reasons”, Reuters cited a Turkish foreign ministry source as saying.

In a sign of potential rapprochement between Ankara and Damascus, Syrian and Turkish defence ministers held landmark talks in Moscow in December, alongside their Russian counterpart.

In January, Cavusoglu said he could meet his Syrian counterpart in February to discuss normalisation between the two neighbours.

After meeting his Iranian counterpart Hossein Amir-Abdollahian last week, Cavusoglu said Iran wanted to join the talks between Turkey, Syria and Russia, and Turkey agreed.

In a rare visit abroad, Assad met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Wednesday.