Turkiye's Fidan invites Dar to attend meeting in Istanbul with Saudi, Egypt foreign ministers

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan on Wednesday invited Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar to attend the upcoming Regional 4 Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Istanbul later this month.

According to the Foreign Office (FO), the development came as Dar spoke with Fidan by telephone, during which they “exchanged views on recent regional developments and discussed efforts to promote regional peace and stability”.

“Fidan invited Dar to attend the upcoming Regional 4 foreign ministers’ meeting of Pakistan, Turkiye, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, to be held in Istanbul later this month,” it said.

Dar accepted the invitation and confirmed his participation in the meeting, it added. The exact date of the meeting was not immediately clear.

The two had also spoken last week and exchanged views on the evolving regional situation and welcomed the encouraging progress towards an understanding between the United States and Iran.

Fidan had expressed hope that “these positive developments would pave the way for lasting peace and stability in the region”.

The meeting in Istanbul comes as negotiations between the United States and Iran have stalled as the nearly six-month-old war grinds on with little sign of resolution.

The foreign ministers of the four countries had held two meetings ahead of the announcement of the April ceasefire between the two sides.

The first meeting was held in Riyadh on the sidelines of a consultative ministerial meeting, while the second meeting was held in Islamabad. Both meetings were held in March.

The ministers of all four countries had last met in June, with the countries welcoming the signing of the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding between the US and Iran.