Washington:

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday that Syrian civilians need to be protected after Ankara-backed Islamists overthrew the Damascus government.

The top US diplomat met late Thursday for more than an hour with Erdogan at a lounge at the airport of the capital Ankara, moments after the Turkish leader saw off Hungary’s nationalist prime minister, Viktor Orban.

Blinken “reiterated the importance of all actors in Syria respecting human rights, upholding international humanitarian law, and taking all feasible steps to protect civilians, including members of minority groups”, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said in a statement.

Turkey has emphasised its security concerns following the upheaval in Syria, where it has been fighting a Kurdish-led force that Washington backs as a key player in the fight against Islamic State (IS) group jihadists.

After years of stalemate, the Islamist movement Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group last weekend toppled Syria’s iron-fisted leader Bashar al-Assad, a secular-oriented member of the minority Alawite community.

Blinken told Erdogan of “the need to ensure the coalition to defeat ISIS (IS) can continue to execute its critical mission”, Miller said.

Speaking before his departure to Turkey on a stop in Jordan, Blinken acknowledged “real and clear interests” by Turkey about the PKK, the Kurdish fighters that Ankara links to Syrian Kurdish guerrillas.

“At the same time, again, we want to avoid sparking any kinds of additional conflicts inside of Syria,” Blinken told reporters in Aqaba, Jordan.

“And part of that also has to be ensuring that ISIS doesn’t rear its ugly head again. And critical to making sure that doesn’t happen is the so-called SDF, the Syrian Democratic Forces, that we’ve been supporting,” he said, referring to the Kurdish-led forces.

Blinken, who leaves office next month following Donald Trump’s election victory, has called for an “inclusive” process to form Syria’s next government, with respect for all communities.

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