A Turkish-Syrian joint cabinet meeting was convened in October in Aleppo, Syria, and Gaziantep, Turkey, under an earlier agreement to create a High-Level Strategic Cooperation Council between the two countries. Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu and his Syrian counterpart, Waled al-Moallem, walked across the border as they headed from Aleppo to Gaziantep for the second session of the talks, during which the two countries agreed to lift visa requirements. The Turkish side was represented by 10 Cabinet ministers, while there were 15 ministers attending the talks from the Syrian side.
The second meeting, scheduled for September, will review the implementation of dozens of cooperative agreements signed during the first joint meeting of the Turkish and Syrian governments last year. The ministers will discuss what additional steps can be taken to further improve bilateral cooperation and properly implement the deals signed. New cooperation agreements are also expected to be signed during the talks on the ferry.
The second meeting will be held ahead of a visit by Syrian Prime Minister Naji Otri, planned to take place in October. Syrian President Bashar Assad is also expected to visit Turkey after Otri’s visit, but a date has not been set yet.
Assad on Sunday had talks with Davutoğlu in Damascus, discussing a possible revival of Turkish-mediated talks between Israel and Syria. Davutoğlu said Ankara was determined to resume indirect peace talks between Syria and Israel, but Assad was pessimistic, saying during the meeting that there is no Israeli partner willing to achieve peace. Ankara mediated several rounds of indirect negotiations between the Mideast rivals in 2008, but the discussions made no significant headway. Syria suspended the talks in response to Israel’s military offensive in Gaza.
The Turkish-Syrian agreement to create a High Level Strategic Cooperation Council is similar to a strategic mechanism established between Turkey and Iraq. The Turkish government considers the model a useful tool to expand cooperation with neighboring countries. The countries in the region are also warming to the mechanism, according to Turkish officials: Syria and Libya, which has also signed a deal with Turkey to scrap visa requirements, are considering instituting a similar mechanism for talks between their governments. “Perhaps one day we will see three-way governmental talks between Turkey, Syria and Libya, this time on a ferry between Latakia, Mersin and Tripoli,” a Turkish diplomat told Today’s Zaman.
