High-ranking Turkish army officer visits Syria

The Turkish daily Milliyet on Tuesday stressed that the commander of the Turkish second army Gen. Aytac Yalman will pay a visit to Syria in the second half of February.

The paper added that this is the first visit of its kind on the military level since the signing of the Turkish - Syrian Adanah agreement in October 1998. The paper explained that Gen. Yalman's visit to Syria, during which he will be accompanied by a military delegation, comes at the invitation of the Syrian side and that he will meet with Lt. Gen. Adnan Bader Hassan who signed the Adanah agreement on the Syrian side.

The Turkish paper added that Hassan also is in charge of supervising the security coordination agreed upon between the two sides in fighting the activities of the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK).

The Turkish daily added that Yalman's talks with his Syrian counterparts will concentrate on the implementation of items of the agreement, noting that the visit is made when there are no indications of tripartite Turkish - Syrian - Lebanese talks concerning security cooperation to fight activities by Kurdish revolutionaries.