Talks between the assistant foreign ministers of Syria, Russia, Iran and Turkey kicked off in Moscow Tuesday in the presence of Russia’s top diplomat, Sergey Lavrov, as part of a Kremlin-led effort to reconcile Ankara and Damascus.

The outcome of the talks remained unclear as of the time of publication of this article. Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad has made peace with Ankara conditional on the withdrawal of Turkish troops from large swathes of northern Syria, parts of which Turkey jointly administers with its Sunni rebel allies. Turkey also has troops in Idlib, which is under the control of al-Qaeda offshoot Hayat Tahrir Sham, in line with the Astana Accords signed with Russia and Iran.

Assad is known to be reluctant to make up with Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who for years supported Sunni rebels seeking to bloodily overthrow him until Russia intervened in Syria in 2015 and forced Ankara to ditch its regime change plans.

His views were reiterated by the head of the Syrian delegation, Assistant Foreign and Expatriates Minister Ayman Sousan, who was quoted ahead of Tuesday's meeting by Syria’s official news agency, SANA, saying that Turkey's formal and unequivocal announcement that it would withdraw all its forces is “the gateway to re-establish communication between the two sides.”