Turkiye urges peaceful Syria-SDF talks, warns patience running out – foreign minister

Turkiye's Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan listens to Iran's Foreign Minister during a joint press conference, in Tehran, Iran. (AFP)
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Updated 18 December 2025
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Turkiye urges peaceful Syria-SDF talks, warns patience running out – foreign minister

ANKARA: Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said on Thursday that Turkiye did not want to resort to military action again against Syria’s Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), but warned that the patience of the actors involved was running out over what he described as delays in implementing an integration deal.
“We just hope that things go through dialogue, negotiations and peacefully. We don’t want to see any need to resorting to military means again. But SDF should understand the patience of the relevant actors are running out,” Fidan told an interview with TRT World.
“They should come to a place where their commitment to the agreement of 10th of March should be honored. Everybody is expecting from them to honor that agreement without any delay and without any twisting because we don’t want to see a deviation from this agreement,” he added.


US military operations ‘ahead of schedule,’ Iranian leaders want to talk: Trump

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US military operations ‘ahead of schedule,’ Iranian leaders want to talk: Trump

  • Trump also said Sunday that 48 Iranian leaders have been killed in the US-Israeli bombardments
  • Iranian ‌President Masoud Pezeshkian said a ​leadership council had temporarily assumed duties

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump said on ​Sunday that Iran’s new leadership wants to talk to him and that he has agreed, according to an interview with the Atlantic magazine. 

“They want to talk, and I have agreed to talk, so I will be talking to ‌them. They ‌should have done ​it ‌sooner. ⁠They should have ​given what ⁠was very practical and easy to do sooner. They waited too long,” Trump said in the interview from his Florida residence. Trump did not specify who he would be speaking with or say whether ⁠it would occur on Sunday ‌or Monday.

Iranian ‌President Masoud Pezeshkian said a ​leadership council composed of ‌himself, the judiciary head and a ‌member of the powerful Guardians Council had temporarily assumed the duties of supreme leader following the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Trump said some ‌of the people who were involved in recent talks with the ⁠US are ⁠no longer alive.

“Most of those people are gone. Some of the people we were dealing with are gone, because that was a big — that was a big hit,” he was quoted as saying in the interview with Atlantic staff writer Michael Scherer. “They should have done it sooner, Michael. They could have ​made a ​deal. They should’ve done it sooner. They played too cute.”

Offensive moving ‘ahead of schedule’

Trump also said Sunday that 48 Iranian leaders have been killed in the US-Israeli bombardments of the country and that the offensive is “very positive.”

“Nobody can believe the success we’re having, 48 leaders are gone in one shot. And it’s moving along rapidly,” Trump was quoted as saying in an interview by Fox News.

Trump claimed overall success in the war, which was launched Saturday with the goal of removing Iran’s leadership and destroying its military. Iran has confirmed the death of its supreme leader, Ali Khamenei.

“We’re doing our job not just for us but for the world. And everything is ahead of schedule,” Trump was quoted as saying in a separate interview with CNBC.

“Things are evolving in a very positive way right now, a very positive way,” he said.

The interviews were conducted before the US military for the first time announced casualties in the war: three unidentified service members killed, five seriously wounded and several others more lightly injured.

Central Command (CENTCOM) also announced that the US had sunk an Iranian warship at a dock in the Gulf of Oman.