Assad arrives in Turkey for talks and holiday: media

0 Comments | AFP, August, 2008

ANKARA (AFP) — Syrian President Bashar al-Assad arrived in Turkey Tuesday for a brief holiday and to discuss the indirect negotiations taking place in Turkey between his country and Israel, local media reported.

The Syrian leader, who was accompanied by his wife, was welcomed by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his wife at the airport in Bodrum, a major tourist destination, NTV and CNN-Turk television stations reported.

The two men then had a working lunch and discussed the Israel-Syria talks as well as the wider situation in the Middle East, according to the networks.

Assad and his wife plan to spend nearly a week on holiday in a luxury hotel in Bodrum, which is visited by hundreds of thousands of foreign tourists each year, the online...