Ankara seeks to make the best use of the political efforts exerted in Astana and Geneva for the sake of the Syrian people as the PKK-affiliated Democratic Union Party (PYD), which aims to divide the country, remains an obstacle in the way of permanent peace.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said earlier this week that the Turkish government is working around the clock to merge the progress made in Astana and Geneva for political transition in Syria, which has been locked in a bloody war since 2011.
"We are now looking at how we can integrate Astana into Geneva. [President Recep Tayyip] Erdoğan said the other day very clearly that 'Assad cannot guarantee the country's integrity. The Syrian people should determine their own future.' This is our goal," Çavuşoğlu said.
Hopes for a political process in Syria, following years of waging war, blossomed in the wake of the trilateral meeting in Sochi this week between President Erdoğan, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani.
The foreign minister underscored that today's situation in Syria is much better than a year ago. Pointing to the negotiations between the opposition and the Bashar Assad regime for further developments, Çavuşoğlu said: "The negotiations must be between the regime and the opposition. We have never been against it. We support the Syrian National Dialogue Congress, which will bring the regime together with the opposition."
That being said, any role the PYD might play in the political transition of Syria is firmly opposed by Ankara. Following the trilateral meeting in Sochi, Erdoğan underlined the exclusion of terrorist elements from the resolution process in Syria and that the country will not be under the same roof with terrorists who undermine its national security.
As it seems that Ankara's staunch opposition of the PYD's role in Syria is set in stone, Moscow has extended its support. "The Kremlin is aware of the existence of certain reservations of our Turkish partners regarding the forces they consider a threat to their national security," Dmitry Peskov, Kremlin spokesman, told reporters Thursday.
Abdullah Ağar, an army veteran and security expert, said an adamant stance is needed, especially from the major powers on the ground, to realize the Geneva and Astana processes for a permanent peace in Syria, and a common approach against all terrorist groups is necessary, including the PYD.
Ağar added that Turkey can greatly contribute to establishing stability and that the country's actions in northern Syria will bear fruit in the long-term. "Turkey mainly represents Turkmens and Sunni Arabs in the peace talks. These groups, especially the latter, are the majority in the country but stuck are in a narrow area," he said.
Meanwhile, the Syrian opposition groups announced early Friday that they would send a joint delegation to the U.N.-brokered peace negotiations scheduled to be held next week in Geneva.
Bassma Kodmani, a member of the Syrian opposition's High Negotiation Committee (HNC), told reporters in the Saudi capital Riyadh that they had agreed to send a 50-member delegation to join the peace negotiations to be held on Nov. 28.
Kodmani added that further meetings would be held on Friday to finalize the president of the delegation, leaders and the decision mechanisms.
But she said the delegation will have members from the every group, including Cairo and Moscow-based opposition groups as well as from the Saudi-backed High Negotiations Committee (HNC) and the Istanbul-based National Coalition.
In the ongoing meeting in Riyadh, the opposition groups, excluding the Moscow-based platform, have agreed that the Syrian regime must step down, Kodmani underlined.
"We will go to Geneva without a precondition, but political transition requires the creation of a safe environment, which cannot be achieved under the current regime," Kodmani said, stressing that, "The transition period begins with the removal of Bashar Assad's administration."
Cairo group President Firas al-Khalidi also made a statement on the outcome of the two-day meeting in Riyadh.He pointed out that the participants of the meeting were concerned about the Syrian regime's abandonment, while the Moscow group remained hesitant.
Khalidi reiterated that the participants in Riyadh agreed to form a delegation of 50 people to represent all opposition groups and organizations, and to undertake the task of negotiating in Geneva.
He mentioned that he called on U.N. Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura to launch a precondition-free negotiation to reach a political solution based on the Geneva-1 negotiations and U.N. Security Council resolution no. 2254.
*Contributed by Mustafa Kırıkçıoğlu