Turkey Vows to Broaden Cooperation with Iran, Russia in Anti-Terror Fight in Syria

"We will discuss Syria and the trend of implementation of Astana Accord in a trilateral meeting tomorrow," Erdogan said on Tuesday.

The Turkish president reiterated that the agreement reached in Astana contributed a lot to preventing victimization of further civilians.

"We should not throw future of Syria in the hands of Daesh and other terrorist groups,” he stressed.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin are currently in Ankara to attend the trilateral meeting between Iran, Russia and Turkey slated to discuss the Syrian situation.

In relevant remarks earlier on Tuesday, President Rouhani slammed the unauthorized military presence of foreign forces in Syria, and called for an end to such “illegal” intervention.

"From our viewpoint, the presence of foreign forces in Syria without authorization of the country's government is illegal and must be stopped,” Rouhani said.

President Rouhani and his Russian and Turkish counterparts, are slated to discuss the ongoing situation in the war-torn Arab country on Wednesday.

The important point about the trilateral summit is total exclusion of the Western countries, specially the United States, despite claims by Washington that it has been playing a leading role in the fight against terrorist groups in Syria.

Rouhani underlined Iran’s position on Syria, including the need for the settlement of the crisis through dialogue, continuation of anti-terrorism campaign until complete eradication of all terrorist groups, and determination of the future of the country by the Syrian people without any foreign intervention.

The Ankara summit will be the second such meeting among the presidents of Iran, Russia and Turkey, as guarantors of ceasefire in Syria. Their first meeting on the issue was held in Russia’s resort city of Sochi on November 22 last year.