Syria’s Vice President Abdel Halim Khaddam plans to visit Turkey next month, becoming the first high-ranking Syrian official to make such a visit since the 1980s, according to diplomatic sources.
The sources told United Press International that Khaddam will hand a letter from Syrian President Bashar Assad to his Turkish counterpart during the planned visit to Ankara early next month.
They said the letter would be related to “bilateral ties and the situation in the region” and that Khaddam was also to meet a number of Turkish officials, including the prime minister.
Khaddam’s visit would be the first by a high-ranking Syrian official to Turkey since the 1980s when then-Prime Minister Abdel Raouf al-Kassam visited Ankara. It will be also the first since the two countries signed the Adana security agreement in 1998 following Turkish reinforcements on the Syrian northern border that came after Ankara accused Damascus of supporting the separatist Kurdish rebels headed by Abdallah Ocelan.
