Turkey stands for the holding of elections in Syria without the participation of President Bashar Assad. This was stated on Friday by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at a press conference in Paris after talks with French President Emmanuel Macron.
“Our goal is not to resolve the [Syrian] crisis with Assad, our task is to hold elections without Assad and in accordance with the democratic will of the Syrian people.” We will contribute to this, “the NTV television channel quotes the president.
At the end of 2017, during his visit to Tunisia, Erdogan called the Syrian president a terrorist and said “about the impossibility of cooperation,” which he claims “killed about a million of his citizens.” Later, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova noted that the Turkish leader’s statements “do not have any legal basis.”
The countries – guarantors of the ceasefire in Syria – Russia, Iran and Turkey – agreed on December 22 following the results of the international meeting in Astana on holding the congress of the Syrian national dialogue in Sochi from 29 to 30 January 2018
It is expected that the forum will focus on the development of a new Syrian constitution and on its basis the conduct of elections under the aegis of the United Nations.
Before the congress is convened, Russia, Iran and Turkey will hold a preparatory meeting in Sochi from 19 to 20 January. As Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said earlier, the list of congress participants includes about 1,7 thousand names.
