By Sengul Oymak and Meltem Bulur
KOCAELI/ANKARA, Turkey (AA) – Defense Minister Fikri Isik will meet his U.S. counterpart James Mattis on Thursday in Washington, according to the Turkish minister on Monday.
“We will have an important meeting with U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis in Washington,” Isik told Anadolu Agency.
“We will meet on matters related to Manbij, Raqqah and Syria,” he added.
Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu spoke over the phone with his U.S. counterpart Rex Tillerson on Monday, according to a diplomatic source.
Cavusoglu and Tillersion discussed the recent developments in war-torn Syria and the fight against Daesh, the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to restrictions on talking to the media, said.
They also spoke about the Assad regime and the possibility of a political solution to the ongoing crisis in Syria.
Syria has been locked in a vicious civil war since early 2011, when the Bashar al-Assad regime cracked down on pro-democracy protests — which erupted as part of the “Arab Spring” uprisings — with unexpected ferocity.
Since then, more than a quarter of a million people have been killed and more than 10 million displaced across the war-battered country, according to the UN.
The Syrian Center for Policy Research, however, put the death toll from the six-year conflict at more than 470,000 people.
