DAMASCUS (Reuters) – Turkish intelligence chief Ibrahim Kalin was in Damascus on Thursday, two sources with knowledge of the visit told Reuters, for what the Syrian information ministry said would be talks involving its new rebel leadership.
The ministry said that Kalin and Qatar’s head of state security, Khalfan al-Kaabi, arrived in the capital to meet with Syrian rebel leader Ahmed al-Sharaa and caretaker prime minister Mohammad al-Bashir.
Turkey’s foreign ministry denied the Syrian ministry’s additional notice that Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan was also in Damascus for talks, saying he remained in Turkey.
Fidan attended events in Ankara on Thursday including the arrival of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, and is to meet Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Ankara on Friday.
Doha did not immediately confirm that Kaabi had arrived.
Kalin’s visit would be the first by a senior foreign official to Damascus since rebels toppled president Bashar al-Assad on Sunday, ending his family’s 50-year rule in a swift takeover after 13 years of civil war.
The Turkish intelligence agency MIT did not immediately comment on the visit.
Turkish news outlet Yeni Safak and broadcaster TVNet published a video of Kalin at the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus with heavy security. A Reuters reporter saw at least one car moving towards the mosque amid heavy security and large crowds but it was not immediately clear who was inside the car.
Sharaa, better known as Abu Mohammad al-Golani, leads the rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a former affiliate of al Qaeda, that spearheaded the overthrow of Assad.
(Reporting by Maya Gebeily; Additional reporting by Jana Choukeir in Beirut, Nayera Abdallah in Dubai, and Jonathon Spicer in Ankara, Writing by Nayera Abdallah; Editing by Kevin Liffey, William Maclean)
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