U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan on Friday on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference, where stability of Syria topped the agenda, though Southern Caucuses also came up. Reporting on the meeting is mostly based on White House and Ankara read-outs, which fail to disclose whether any progress was made on Turkey’s pressing demand for US troop withdrawal from Syria, with the objective of Turkish proxies, military and Heyet Tahrir al Sham persuading Syrian Kurds to disarm.
Even though Donald Trump’s second term is less than two months old, Egypt’s Foreign Minister has already visited Washington, as has Jordan’s King Abdullah II, as well as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, reports
Kurdistan24 News.
[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kkcy9VFDSI&t=25s[/embed]
The meeting between Rubio and Fidan was the first senior level engagement between the U.S. and Turkey in Trump’s second term.
Rubio will hold further meetings in Munich on Saturday, before leaving on a tour of three Middle Eastern countries: Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE.)
Rubio’s Exchanges with Fidan—Syria Focus
[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dv0mKx2HT5E&t=112s[/embed]
Just one day after he assumed office, Rubio held a telephone call with Fidan. In their January 22 call, Rubio and Fidan reaffirmed “the importance of U,S.-Turkey relations, Turkey’s role as a key NATO ally, and our shared interests in the region,” according to a State Department read-out of their conversation.
Developments in Syria were a significant topic in that discussion. Turkey was a major backer of Heyet Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the group that overthrew the Baathist regime in Damascus last December.
Indeed, almost certainly, HTS could not have accomplished such a feat on its own. So Turkey retains significant influence with Syria’s new HTS government.
In his conversation with Fidan last month, Rubio “highlighted the need for an inclusive transition” in Syria in order to ensure that “the new government prevents Syria from becoming a source for international terrorism and denying foreign malign actors the opportunity to exploit Syria’s transition for their own objectives,” the U.S. read-out of their discussion stated.
And on February 14, when Rubio met with Fidan, Syria, once again, topped their agenda. As the State Department read-out of their meeting explained, Rubio “emphasized the need for close cooperation to support a stable and unified Syria that is not a threat to the United States, Turkey, or the region.”
They also discussed the anti-ISIS Coalition, which, apparently, had not been a topic of discussion in their phone call last month. That is what the U.S. read-outs would suggest, and the change may reflect a recent increase in ISIS’s activities.
As the U.S. readout of Friday’s meeting between Rubio and Fidan explained, “The Secretary noted Turkey’s leadership in the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS,” along with “our joint efforts to support a just and lasting peace in the South Caucasus, and our shared objective of ending Russia’s war on Ukraine.”
Meanwhile, Anadolu Agency reported that Fidan underscored the need for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, stressing that resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is essential for achieving regional peace.
Rubio, Fidan mull situation in South Caucasus
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan discussed the current situation in the South Caucasus, along with other key regional issues, during a meeting on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference.
U.S. Department of State Spokesperson Tammy Bruce reported then that “the Secretary and the Foreign Minister also discussed the importance of a durable and dignified peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan”.
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