TURKEY’S intelligence agency and a major Iraqi Kurdish party are believed to have held joint talks with Syrian officials on Tuesday in an attempt to obstruct a deal between Damascus and Syria’s Kurds.

It is understood that officials from Turkey’s National Intelligence Organisation (MIT) and Iraq’s Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) rushed to the Syrian capital on the orders of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan after news broke of discussions between the Syrian government and the Syrian Democratic Council (SDC) last week.

The meeting with the SDC, the political wing of the largely Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), was held at the instigation of the Syrian government.