Turkey is working to ensure that Syria's transformation over the last month will not bring new instabilities to the region, President Tayyip Erdogan told the Iraqi Kurdish prime minister, Erdogan's office said on Tuesday.
Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government Prime Minister Masrour Barzani, Daniel Leal/Pool via Reuters
Turkey is working to ensure that Syria's transformation over the last month will not bring new instabilities to the region, President Tayyip Erdogan told the Iraqi Kurdish prime minister, Erdogan's office said on Tuesday.
Erdogan met Masrour Barzani, Prime Minister of neighbouring Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region, in Ankara and the presidency published a photo of the pair shaking hands.
The visit comes as Turkey has repeatedly said there is no place in Syria's future for the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and its extensions, after a rebellion last month ousted former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.
Erdogan repeated that message in the meeting and also "stated that Turkey attaches importance to the preservation of Iraq's stability and security, especially in light of the developments in Syria," the readout from his office said.
Turkey has been calling for the YPG militia in northeast Syria to disband since Assad's fall. It regards YPG as an extension of the PKK, which is deemed a terrorist group by Ankara, Washington and the European Union.
The YPG spearheads the U.S.-allied Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in the northeast and played a key role defeating Islamic State militants in 2014-2017. The group still guards Islamic State fighters in prison camps there.
Reporting by Huseyin Hayatsever
Several thousand people marched under the rain in northeast Syria on Tuesday to protest the expulsion of Kurdish fighters from the city of Aleppo the previous week after days of deadly clashes.
Turkey said on Monday that any foreign intervention in neighbouring Iran would lead to greater crises in the country and the region, and it called for U.S. and Iranian negotiations to resolve existing problems.
The last Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighters left the Syrian city of Aleppo on Sunday, state-run Ekhbariya TV said, following a ceasefire deal that allowed evacuations after days of deadly clashes.
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