Syria’s foreign minister said he would visit Turkey on Wednesday on the first official trip to the country since Islamist-backed rebels toppled president Bashar al-Assad last month, Agence France-Presse reported.
“We will represent the new Syria tomorrow in the first official visit to the Turkish republic, which has not abandoned the Syrian people for 14 years,” interim Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani said on Tuesday on X.
Turkey backed armed groups fighting Assad’s forces after civil war broke out in 2011, triggered by the brutal repression of anti-government protests.
It has maintained a working relationship with the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham rebels who spearheaded the offensive that ousted Assad, now giving it a direct line to Damascus.
Syria’s northern neighbor is home to nearly three million Syrians who fled their country after the start of the conflict, and Assad’s overthrow has raised hopes that many will go back.
The head of Syria’s electricity authority said last week that Turkey was sending a power ship to increase supply after the United States eased sanctions.
In northern Syria, Turkey has since 2016 mounted multiple operations against Syrian Kurdish forces it accuses of being “terrorists.”
Battles between Turkish-backed groups, supported by air strikes, and Kurdish-led forces have killed hundreds in recent months, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor.
Shaibani has already visited Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Jordan since the start of the month.
The foreign ministers of Italy, France and Germany have visited Damascus.