Assad outlines stipulations for meeting Erdogan

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said Monday he was open to meeting Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan but it depended on the encounter's "content", noting Turkey's presence in Syria is a key sticking point.

Earlier this month, Erdogan said he might invite Assad to Turkey "at any moment", in a sign of reconciliation after ties between the two countries soured over the war which broke out in Syria in 2011.

"If the meeting were to lead to results or... achieve the country's interests, I will do it. But the problem... lies in the content of the meeting," Assad told journalists in Damascus as Syrians voted in parliamentary elections – per Agence France-Presse (AFP). 

Since 2016, Turkey has carried out successive ground operations to expel the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) from Syria's north, with pro-Turkish forces now controlling large swathes of Syrian border territory.

Assad asked whether the "reference points" for the meeting would be "ending the reasons for the problem, which are support for terrorism, and the withdrawal from Syrian territory?"

These are "the essence of the problem," he said.

"We are positive towards any initiative to improve the relationship... but that doesn't mean we go (to a meeting) without rules," Assad added.

Ankara views the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) that dominate the SDF as an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which it considers a terrorist group.

On Saturday, Erdogan announced the imminent end of his government's operations against PKK fighters in northern Iraq and Syria.

Erdogan said the PKK had been "completely trapped" in both Iraq and Syria, telling young military academy graduates that Turkish forces were "all over them".

"We will complete the missing points of the security corridor along our southern border with Syria," he added.