Turkey said it will facilitate contacts between Syria’s government and opposition groups in preparation for peace talks organized together with Russia and Iran that aim to reach a nationwide cease-fire as the first step to ending an almost six-year civil war.
“We must find a way to stop this bloodiest war of the modern era,” President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said at a news conference in Ankara on Monday. “Our aim here is to make sure the cease-fire is reached and systematically enforced in all of Syria. Our ultimate aim is to reach a political transition process.”