Syrian - Turkish security committee to meet on Tuesday

Turkish sources told the London-based al-Hayat daily that a Turkey's Gen. Etach Yalman will visit Damascus on Tuesday in the course of the periodic meetings of the security committee set up between the two countries according to the Adanah agreement on October 20, 1998 and put an end to the Syrian - Turkish crisis.

The Turkish sources explained that Gen. Yalman will meet with the Syrian representative to the committee, Lt. Gen. Adnan Hassa, who is the chief of political intelligence and that the two-day visit includes a meeting with Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa.

Al-Sharaa, however, met with members of the committee by the end of October, 1998. Al-Sharaa was quoted by Syrian official sources as asserting his country's will to "settle all pending issues" and its desire to maintain the "best neighborly relations with Turkey."

Tuesday's meeting will be the third for the committee. Its second meeting was held in November, 1998, on the Turkish side of the Syrian - Turkish border.