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Turkey's president aide affirms new Syrian peace talks

16 December 2016 19:05 (UTC +04:00)

Turkey’s presidential spokesman has affirmed Friday Turkey is working with Russia to launch new peace talks to end the Syrian conflict, APA reports quoting Anadolu Agency.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said early Friday that he and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan have agreed to work on launching a new series of peace talks.

Speaking to TRT Haber channel, president's aide Ibrahim Kalin said President Erdogan welcomed Putin's proposal and agreed to work on it.

Kalin described Putin's offer as starting a second process in addition to Geneva talks which would bring sides together, under UN roof.

"It is important that this offer comes from Russia," he added.

Kalin said, "this is not an alternative to the Geneva talks, but perhaps a process can be initiated in coordination with Geneva talks."

This may positively influence the dynamics, he added.

"We will work on this, but it is more urgent to stop the conflicts in Aleppo," he stressed. Kalin said it is not meaningful to carry on negotiations in Astana, Geneva or elsewhere while the conflict still continues there.

Putin told a press conference in Tokyo, "the day before yesterday in a phone conversation we agreed with President Erdogan that we will offer the conflicting parties -- we to the government of Syria and the Turkish president to the representatives of the armed opposition -- to continue peace talks at a new venue, and this could be Kazakhstan’s capital Astana," as Russian news agency TASS quoted.

Putin added that if the government and opposition agree to the proposal, "we will ask Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev to back this process." He also insisted that the proposed talks in Astana would not “compete” with those held in Geneva, but would “complement the Geneva talks".