ANKARA, Dec 11, 2024 (BSS/AFP) - US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will
visit Turkey on Friday to discuss the developments in Syria after the
toppling of strongman Bashar al-Assad, a Turkish official source said
Wednesday.

"He will be in Turkey on Friday," the source said of the visit which will
come just five days after Assad's unexpected ouster, pledging to share more
details "as they are finalised".

For more than a decade, Washington has sought to keep out of Syria's
political debacle, seeing no viable partner but the lightning offensive by
Islamist-led rebels is forcing a rethink.

There are around 900 US troops based in Syria since 2014 who have been
working with Kurdish-led fighters that have battled IS jihadists in
northeastern Syria.

But Washington's support of the Kurdish forces has put it at odds with Ankara
which sees them as an extension of the banned PKK which has led a decades-
long bloody insurgency against the Turkish state.