President Vladimir Putin held a meeting on Wednesday with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in the Russian resort of Sochi to discuss the fate of Syria. Earlier, the Russian strongman announced that his main aim was to bring Iran and Turkey together in his ‘bold’ Syria peace plan.
Ahead of the meeting, President Putin held talks with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Sochi. According to sources close to Kremlin, Assad arrived in Moscow on Tuesday to inform Putin about the current political scenario in his country. During their meeting, the Russian leader praised his guest for his effort to defeat the Islamic State (IS) terror outfit. He expressed hope that terrorism would not win in the war-torn West Asian nation. “As far as our joint work in fighting terrorism on the territory of Syria is concerned, this military operation is indeed nearing completion. I believe that the main task now is to launch the political process,” he said while addressing a joint press conference with Assad.
Later, Putin telephoned US President Donald Trump, Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sissi, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Saudi King Salman to inform them about his discussion with Assad. He also informed the world leaders that the Syrian president agreed to abide by a political settlement for Syria. President Putin claimed that Assad would not only amend the Constitution, but also hold the Parliamentary and Presidential Elections in near future.

Meanwhile, Russia, Turkey and Iran discussed their future strategy to ensure peace in Syria. After attending the tripartite meeting, President Erdoğan said: “We have agreed on an inclusive, free, fair and transparent political process under the leadership of the Syrian people. Ankara would not accept existence of terrorist groups in Syria. No one should expect us to be under the same roof with terror organisations that target our national security.”
For his part, President Rouhani stressed: “The three countries’ strategy is based on partnership and not competition, on friendship and not on animosity.”
Foreign policy experts are of the opinion that the Russia-Turkey-Iran meeting has a great political implication and such a meeting didn’t take place in the past. In Syria, the Assad government has regained control over the areas which were captured by the rebels and militant groups. Now, the three powers want to help the Assad government end the civil war as soon as possible.
Interestingly, Turkey’s role in the peace process is little bit different. Unlike Russia and Iran, Turkey isn’t backing the Assad regime. Ankara has always supported the Syrian rebels and tried to overthrow the Assad government. Very recently, the Erdogan administration has softened its stand and decided not to criticise the Syrian government openly.

Russian political analyst Azhdar Kurtov stressed: “Assad’s visit shows that there was a need to relay the Syrian leadership’s position on a future settlement to the Kremlin and that (Assad) was interested in the summit with the presidents of Iran and Turkey.” He added: “It is unlikely this was just another demonstration of the Kremlin’s political loyalty to Assad. The open-war phase in the Syria conflict will soon be over and the question of a political solution will become more pressing than before.”
Kurtov explained that Russia, Iran and Turkey have different views on the Syrian peace process because they have different interests there. So, they are trying to sort out their differences. The analyst said that there was enough discussion on the military strategy in the past and it became important to discuss the political solution. The Putin-Assad meeting (ahead of the trilateral talks) will certainly help reach the solution.

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Published by Koushik Das

Koushik Das (born on May 16, 1976 in Kolkata) is a career journalist. Based in the Indian capital of New Delhi, Koushik writes mainly about foreign policies and current geopolitical issues, and rarely about other topics. His own political ideas are highly influenced by Antonio Gramsci, Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault, Michael Oakeshott and others. English philosopher and political theorist Oakeshott (Dec 11, 1901-Dec 19, 1990) says that “in political activity, men sail a boundless and bottomless sea. There is neither harbour for shelter nor floor for anchorage, neither starting-place, nor appointed destination. But we have to keep afloat”. (Rationalism in Politics, 1962) As a student of Political Science, Koushik loves to share his views on issues, which have great impacts on his thought process (and also on India, South Asia and of course on the global community), with his readers through his website – Boundless Ocean of Politics. By doing so, he tries to keep himself afloat. You will find some of his articles in https://inserbia.info/today/ (https://inserbia.info/today/author/kou_das13_i/), as he has been trying to assess the global geopolitics since 2003. You can also mail him at kousdas@gmail.com View all posts by Koushik Das