US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he will meet with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan to discuss the situation in Syria and focus on “preventing anyone in or outside the country, put personal interests ahead of the interests of the Syrian people.”
“I’ve had many calls over the past few days with partners in the region and everyone has agreed on the need to have a unified approach to advancing our common interests,” Blinken told reporters.
Blinken said he spoke with King Abdullah II of Jordan and Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi while in the country “to build and develop this unified approach” toward Syria.
“I will continue these conversations with President Erdogan and Foreign Minister Fidan in Türkiye,” he highlighted.
Blinken reiterated the US commitment to preventing the growth of the Islamic State in Syria after the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
“As we have demonstrated, the United States is determined to prevent this from happening,” Blinken shared, referring to the regrouping of the Islamic State.
Understand the conflict in Syria
The Assad family regime was overthrown in Syria on December 8, after 50 years in power, when rebel groups took over the capital Damascus.
President Bashar al-Assad has fled the country and is in Moscow after gaining asylum, according to a source in Russia.
Syria’s civil war began during the Arab Spring in 2011, when the regime of Bashar al-Assad suppressed a pro-democracy uprising.
The country was plunged into full-scale conflict when a rebel force was formed, known as the Free Syrian Army, to fight government troops.
Furthermore, the Islamic State, a terrorist group, also managed to gain a foothold in the country and came to control 70% of Syrian territory.
Fighting escalated as other regional actors and world powers — from Saudi Arabia, Iran, the United States to Russia — joined in, escalating the country’s war into what some observers described as a “proxy war.”
Russia has allied with Bashar al-Assad’s government to combat the Islamic State and rebels, while the United States has led an international coalition to repel the terrorist group.
After a ceasefire agreement in 2020, the conflict remained largely “dormant”, with minor clashes between the rebels and the Assad regime.
More than 300,000 civilians have been killed in more than a decade of war, according to the UN, and millions of people have been displaced across the region.
Find out who the Syrian rebel leader is and the group that overthrew Bashar al-Assad
This content was originally published in Blinken will meet with Turkish officials to discuss Syria on the CNN Brasil website.
Source: CNN Brasil
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