Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu will travel to Russia Wednesday to attend a four-way meeting with Russian, Iranian and Syrian counterparts in Moscow, the Foreign Ministry said Tuesday.
Çavuşoğlu is expected to hold his first official meeting with Syrian counterpart Faisal Mekdad.
Russia's long-standing effort to open a channel of dialogue between Türkiye and the Bashar Assad regime paid off last year, as the defense ministers and intelligence chiefs of Türkiye, Russia and the Bashar Assad regime met in Moscow on Dec. 28.
A reconciliation with Syria is also supported by Erdoğan's opponents and plays an important part in Türkiye's election campaign.
Erdoğan has pledged to speed up the repatriation of nearly four million Syrian refugees and migrants who fled to Türkiye to escape poverty and war.
An agreement with Damascus is seen as a prerequisite for this process.
Ankara said the repatriation will be brought under discussion at the meeting.
The sides will "exchange views on the normalization of relations between Türkiye and Syria, discuss humanitarian issues... and the voluntary, safe and dignified return of asylum seekers," the Foreign Ministry said.
Minister Çavuşoğlu exchanged a few words with his Syrian counterpart on the sidelines of a regional summit in 2021.
But both sides insisted that this did not mark a resumption of formal talks.
According to statements from the Assad regime, Damascus wants the end of Turkish presence on Syrian territories.
Since 2016, Ankara has launched a trio of successful counterterrorism operations across its border in northern Syria to prevent the formation of a terror corridor and enable the peaceful settlement of residents: Euphrates Shield in 2016, Olive Branch in 2018 and Peace Spring in 2019.
The PKK terrorist group's Syrian wing, the YPG, has controlled much of northeastern Syria after Assad's forces withdrew in 2012.
Turkish officials have voiced that Ankara and Damascus could, in the upcoming period, cooperate on the return of Syrian refugees in Türkiye as well as counterterrorism efforts as the PPK/YPG still controls much of the war-torn country’s east, making it impossible for Assad to establish territorial integrity.
On the other side, normalization has also been ongoing with the regime and the Arab world. Several Arab leaders have voiced the possibility of Syria being readmitted to the Arab League. A summit is expected to take place in Riyadh in May.
