The Syrian High Negotiations Committee (HNC) will meet in the Saudi capital Riyadh today to establish a unified vision for the upcoming transitional phase, and to form a complete picture that considers all the details of the political transition, international evaluation and prospects for a political solution in the next phase.

Meanwhile, as the uproar about the Turkish stance on the Syrian crisis continues, some members of the HNC believe that the recent statements that the Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim made regarding the normalisation of relations between Ankara and Damascus were “merely a slip of the tongue” and that Yildirim later clarified on Wednesday that he intended to say that Turkey would normalise relations with Russia only and mentioned Syria instead by mistake. He also said that reports of a meeting between Turkish officials and representatives of the Syrian regime in Iran were untrue.

During an interview in the Saudi capital, the spokesman for the HNC Dr Riyad Nassan Agha told Asharq Al-Awsat that “The Turkish prime minister’s remarks on the normalisation of relations with the Syrian regime was just a slip of the tongue and were not true at all. Even the Turkish Prime Minister himself denied that his country was inclined to normalising relations with the Syrian regime. He said it was just a slip of the tongue and that he wanted to say Russia but said Syria instead. He did say that we want to normalise relations with Syria but he meant Russia”.

Agha continued by saying that “We have seen several interviews and statements in the media that are false in origin this week. This includes reports that General Ali Habib visited Ankara. The HNC spokesman insisted that all of these reports were lies and were not based on any reliable or credible source.