The upcoming meeting will be the first step on the road to a long process of negotiations that would result in political and diplomatic understandings leading to normalization of relations, the sources added.

They noted that Ankara asked Moscow and Baghdad to prepare the ground for Turkish diplomats to sit at the negotiating table with Syria without the presence of third parties or the press.

According to local media, the rapprochement is widely supported by Arab states, especially Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, as well as Russia, China and Iran.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan recently stated that there is no reason for his country not to forge renewed ties with neighboring Syria.

Just as we once developed relations between Türkiye and Syria, we will act together again in the same way,” he added.

Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad, in turn, said his country welcomes any initiative to revive relations with Türkiye as long as it is based on respect for sovereignty and the fight against terrorism.

Syria and Türkiye have had their relations severed since the start of the war in 2011, and Russian and Iranian efforts at reconciliation culminated last year with a meeting in Moscow between the foreign ministers of the two neighboring nations.

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