The Turkish foreign minister meets the head of HTS in Damascus

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan met in Damascus on Sunday with Syria's de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa - also known as Abu Mohammed al-Golani, Turkey's foreign ministry said, without giving further details.

Photos and footage released by the ministry show Fidani and Sharaan, the leader of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham Islamist group that led the operation to topple Bashar Assad two weeks ago, followed by a large delegation and then posing for photographs. Both of them are also seen shaking hands, hugging and smiling.

On Friday, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey would help Syria's new administration form a state structure and draft a new constitution, adding that Mr. Fidan would go to Damascus to discuss this new structure, but without giving a date.

Ibrahim Kalin, the head of Turkey's MIT intelligence agency, also visited Damascus on December 12, four days after Assad's fall. Ankara had for years backed rebels trying to oust Assad and hailed the end of his family's brutal five-decade rule after a 13-year civil war.

Turkey also hosts millions of Syrian migrants who it hopes will begin returning to their country after the fall of Assad, and has pledged to help rebuild Syria.

Minister Fidan's visit comes amid fighting in northeastern Syria between Turkish-backed Syrian fighters and the Kurdish YPG militia, which leads the US-allied Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in the northeast and which Ankara considers a terrorist organization.

Earlier, Turkey's Defense Minister said that Ankara believes that the new Syrian leadership, including the armed group of the Syrian National Army (SNA) which Ankara supports, will expel the YPG fighters from all the territory they check in the northeast.

Ankara, along with Syrian allies, has orchestrated several cross-border offensives against the Kurdish faction in northern Syria and controls swaths of Syrian territory along the border, while repeatedly demanding that its NATO ally Washington end support for Kurdish fighters.

The SDF has been at a disadvantage since the fall of Assad, facing the threat of advances from Ankara and Turkish-backed groups as it tries to preserve the political gains of the past 13 years, and with Syria's new leaders on friendly terms with Ankara. . VOA (A2 Televizion)