From Russia with love: Turkish and Syrian spymasters meet in Moscow
The Moscow meeting between the Turkish and Syrian intelligence chiefs could suggest that a normalization process has finally kicked off between Ankara and Damascus.
When Turkey’s intelligence chief and defense and foreign ministers traveled to Moscow last week, the main issue on their agenda was thought to be the conflict in Libya, but out of Russia’s toolbox came a surprise. Under Russian mediation, the Turkish and Syrian intelligence chiefs met face to face in what was the first high-level Turkish-Syrian encounter since 2011, when Turkey’s then-Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu met with President Bashar al-Assad in Damascus. After nearly nine years of enmity, is the Jan. 13 meeting the precursor to a normalization process between the two neighbors?
To start with, it was Damascus that wanted the world to know the meeting took place. Syria’s official news agency SANA broke the news, running reports in both English and Turkish.
