"Technical reasons" have led to the postponement of quadrilateral talks between Türkiye, Syria, Iran and Russia set to be held in Moscow on Wednesday and Thursday, said Turkish diplomatic sources.

In a sign of potential rapprochement between Ankara and the Bashar Assad regime, Syrian and Turkish defense ministers held landmark talks in Moscow in December, alongside their Russian counterpart, marking the highest-level encounter since the start of the Syrian war more than a decade ago. Russian Foreign Ministry sources also confirmed that the sides agreed to postpone the talks to another, unspecified date.

In January, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said he could meet his Syrian counterpart in February to discuss normalization between the two neighbors. After meeting his Iranian counterpart Hossein Amirabdollahian last week, Çavuşoğlu said Iran wanted to join the talks between Türkiye, Syria and Russia, and Türkiye had agreed.

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