Iran, Turkey presidents meet ahead of Syria summit

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has met with visiting Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in Ankara ahead of a major summit on the conflict in Syria that will also be joined by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

President Rouhani arrived in the Turkish capital to attend the summit on Wednesday. He and Erdogan held a closed-door meeting shortly afterwards.

They are to be joined by their Russian counterpart, President Putin, at the trilateral Iran-Russia-Turkey summit being hosted by Erdogan.

The three leaders will give a joint press conference afterwards.

Since late 2016, Iran, Russia, and Turkey have been making joint efforts to try to end the conflict in Syria. The three countries act as guarantor states for a peace process that started in January 2017.

In that attempt at brokering peace — known as the Astana peace process — Russia and Iran act as Syrian government allies, and Turkey represents the Syrian opposition.

Efforts in the Astana process have led to the establishment of four de-escalation zones in Syria, which have significantly reduced fighting in the country.

The Ankara summit is expected to further facilitate the Astana process.

A parallel peace process has been ongoing in the Swiss city of Geneva for several years but has achieved very little by comparison.