AlJazeera English reports that on July 30, in a 36 minute telephone call, Turkish Prime Minister Regep Tayyip Erdogan and US President Barack Obama discussed how to work together to speed up a political transition in Syria . “In the talks, they took up the co-ordination of efforts to accelerate the process of political transition in Syria, including Bashar al-Assad leaving the administration and the meeting of the Syrian people’s legitimate demands.”
“Prime Minister Erdogan and President Obama agreed on the co-ordination of efforts to help Syrians forced to flee to Turkey and neighbouring countries,” a statement from Erdogan’s office read. Currently, there are about 44,000 Syrian refugees in Turkey.